Our Lives Unbound Extras
by theladyingrey42
Summary: Prequels, outtakes, futuretakes from the story Our Lives Unbound. Who knows, maybe someday even some alternate POVs. Maybe.
1. My Life In Chains

I'm sadly still a little behind on getting the next full chapter of OLU finished, but in the meantime, please accept this outtake/prequel. I wrote it months and months ago when I was trying to get deeper into Subward's head. It's also a response to how I feel BDSM (and male submission in particular) is often portrayed in popular culture.

I envision this taking place about a year before Chapter 1 of the story (i.e. a year before Edward met Bella) so realize it's not exactly going to be happy.

Lines of dialog quoted from _Bones_ are from the episode entitled "The Girl In the Freezer." Bones belongs to whoever the hell makes Bones. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. I belong to antiaol and bmango.

* * *

**Our Lives Unbound Prequel: My Life In Chains:**

With the silencing of my computer's fan, my apartment is utterly still. Stagnant.

Pushing away from my desk, I turn off the monitor and stare with eyes full of dread at the remaining hours of my evening. Already, I can feel the pointless passage of time and the continued hum of isolation.

I do not know how to break free.

I do not know what to_ do_.

Tugging at greasy strands of hair, I rest my elbows on my knees and close my eyes, staring at the nothingness found in the creeping loneliness of my own stunted mind. I stay that way for a while, just breathing and thinking.

And trying not to think of the things which have been haunting me.

Standing at last, I make my way to my kitchen, the bare sparseness of it taunting me as I go about assembling another meal I have no taste for. Shivering at the chill of ice cubes tumbling into my glass, I breath deeply at the sound of crackling as I pour in more whiskey than I should.

But not as much as I would like to.

As the microwaves hums, I stand in the doorway to the kitchen and nurse my drink, watching the silent telephone and the locked-up door. Even though by now I should know to ignore them both.

Palming myself through my pants, my mind is unwillingly drawn back yet again to the disaster that was the previous weekend - to how a strange fit of anger at myself and my life pierced the fog of lonely grey and sent me scrambling desperately out of the safe cage of these entombing walls. My body shivers at the memory of touch, my hands numb from too much alcohol and my lips bruised as they sucked at a mouth too sickly sweet with gloss, all my awkward discomfort rising as I rose up on my knees above the naked body of a girl whose name I can't even remember. I grimace and harden simultaneously as I relive the wet heat, sliding and embarrassment as I peaked after barely half a dozen strokes, coming and cursing and shame overwhelming me as I drunkenly fell off of her, trying to reciprocate the act of pleasure, only to be batted away.

The microwaves dings.

I pulse.

And I disgust myself.

Eating alone at a table that I don't even know why I own, I swallow over and over, but it does nothing to force the disappointment down, longing for connection and some way out of this stifling space.

I have done this before. So many times I have almost given in to some idea of moving past myself and my broken speech and self-imposed confines, and a small handful of times I have even taken the steps out into that terrifying night. And each of those times, if I defy the odds enough to find a partner, it has ended in nothing but a shameful and too-quick orgasm between scornful thighs. A failure to exchange phone numbers.

Another night alone feeling even worse than before, my need higher.

My unsatisfied arousal harder.

I hear my fork clattering to my plate as I clench my fists, punching the table.

I need a way out.

And I need to come.

Pulling my erection from my pants, I have already taken myself in hand by the time I arrive at my bedroom, making idle passes of my palm over rigid, seeping flesh. As always, it is a strange thing to be taking my misery out on myself this way, emotion and desolation rising in my chest with almost as much intensity as the sensation building in the nerves that are screaming for attention. I want to sob. To fuck.

To feel _something_ other than alone.

Pulling a magazine from my night stand, I prop myself up on my hip so that I may flip through the pages and continue my assault on my own tender flesh at the same time. Images pass through me, and there is a pang in my chest as I realize how little real flesh I have ever felt or seen, how foreign so much of this is to my pathetic experiences.

I realize, too, how little the majority of these images even do for me.

Rejecting out of hand the ones of men biting and fucking at passive forms, I search with hungry eyes and aching flesh for something else. Something more.

With a gasping inhale, my fingers pause both on the pages and around the base of my cock. And I stare.

It's a simple picture, really. A woman. Strong. Sexy. She is only half naked, too-large breasts spilling over black leather, a bare pussy showing beneath the edge of the corset.

The thin pad of a riding crop poised beneath the pouty swell of her fake, red lips.

And behind her, a man, half his body obstructed by her figure.

His face and his look of desire obstructed by a blindfold.

Hissing lightly, I feel so much of the emptiness in my chest being replaced by the stinging pain of giving in, of allowing myself to be aroused by things I never wanted to want. There's hot pleasure and a sickening sensation as my mind rushes to complete the scene, her ass in my view as she rides him in every way imaginable, his hands helpless.

Bound.

At that idea I groan out loud, pumping myself harder and twisting my hand repeatedly over the head in a punishing rhythm that is excruciating ecstasy. Over and over again, my hand rushes over my flesh, another stab in my abdomen as I try to push myself toward my peak, but remembering how I fell off of it too easily with an actual girl.

Remembering how I failed.

Remembering shame.

And imagining a more visceral – a more physical pain.

With a single cry, I release, come pulsing down my hand and onto my stomach, and for a moment my mind is quiet.

Until everything else comes rushing in.

Disappointment and emptiness.

Disgust.

I reach over to my side, searching blindly until my hand connects with the box of tissues I am sad enough to keep for just this purpose, to try in vain to scrub away the tell-tale signs of my masturbation. Almost whimpering, I swab at myself roughly, relieved to be done with this task and yet feeling no true release from myself. From my guilt and my unhappiness.

From the pained continuance of my own sad company.

Tucking myself away, I rise and stash the magazine away, striding out into the kitchen to make another cocktail that I shouldn't have. With the cool glass in my still slightly shaking hand, I settle down on my couch and let my thumb play over the remote. Hollow people flash across the screen, caricatures and characters, and none of them are real.

Nothing is real.

Downing the rest of my drink, I let the burn follow me down into the bowels of this night, my eyes fuzzing over and numbness slowly spreading. Channels flip past me, but even without the alcohol, I am beyond caring.

Eventually I settle on a station, recognizing a face I have seen before. It's a rerun of a crime procedural I have seen a couple of times, the distance in it feeling safe somehow. When the title flashes across the screen, I chuckle to myself.

_Bones_.

Something then to make my skeleton of a life feel even less complete.

In careless pre-occupation, I watch the opening scenes, a gruesome body and witty banter all playing out across the screen. I smile faintly at the main character and the intimations of her loneliness, her rational, detached mind keeping her emotions locked away.

I frown when the scene shifts to one of red sheets.

Naked flesh.

Knowing that even the most detached of characters on television get their chances at connection.

The bitter bile rises even higher as I pour another glass of whiskey and sit back against the arm of the couch. I zone out a little bit, but am snapped back to attention when I see a flash of metal.

For while it is not unusual to see a pair of handcuffs on a crime show, _these_ handcuffs are different.

These handcuffs are for sex.

The illicit concept of it makes my spent cock stir, the deepest pits of desire that I keep so carefully hidden away breaking through the depths of my own misgivings and the uncertain, guilty feelings I have wrapped them in.

I hear the main character's words, an anthropological discussion of sex and play, stating with clinical fascination, "Seeking sexual gratification through the manipulation of power. Probably the oldest of fetishes, master-slave. It's all about dominance."

Rapt and passive, I watch with growing arousal, only to have my breath punched from my lungs as her partner, in all his gruff masculinity, modeling everything I know that, as a man I should aspire to, scoffs.

"Well this sort of thing only comes up when the bloom goes off the rose, if you know what I mean... You know when the regular stuff... when it gets old you need to spice it up or it's over. If the sex is good you don't need any help."

Shivering and shriveling, I wonder if that is my problem indeed. If it is my own ineptitude that makes me crave things, longing with an appetite I don't know how to sate.

If I will never be adept at the "regular stuff."

If I will never feel normal with a woman.

My eyes are drawn in sudden attention to the screen again to find that the scene has changed, an interrogation room now occupying the frame. With the same arrogance and derision, the male partner posits a hypothesis, and I find myself sitting up straighter.

"Here's what I was thinking: female, dominant, strapped for cash meets wealthy teenager on the outs with her parents, convinces her submissive husband to hold her for ransom."

For a moment, I feel dizzy.

_Submissive husband._

And for a scant fraction of a second, as the camera pans to a woman with fire in her eyes, I try to picture it. My body, naked and on my knees.

There is a brief interchange, and then the woman appears again. And while she's not particularly physically attractive, her words cut me to the core.

"Why don't you come at me? Are you threatened or do I turn you on?"

To myself, I whisper_,_ "B-b-b-both."

Because for me, it is always both.

My attention is only half on the program as it moves back to its more usual rhythm. Fully aroused again, I am contemplating possibilities I so rarely allow myself to consider, all my will bent so much of the time toward trying to be normal, even though I know that I am anything but.

And I can almost imagine it.

Almost _taste_ a kind of satisfaction that has always seemed unattainable.

But then a harsh voice emanates from the speaker. A voice that is chastising.

Cold.

Cruel. And not at all in the way that I would like for it to be.

"When these S&M perverts walk on this, it'll be on your head."

The speaker, a dark-haired woman who, besides a certain sharpness about her face, is actually somewhat appealing to me, huffs in anger and then turns away.

But her words are still with me, even as my thumb numbly moves on the remote to turn off the TV.

_Perverts._

_Perversion._

_Sick._

I have heard the words before, but they are a harsh splash of cold water on the warmth that had almost begun to take the chill off of the most frightened, small-feeling parts inside of me.

Without another look, I lift myself off the couch, depositing my empty glass in the sink and moving toward my bathroom.

Brushing my teeth in slow, distracted movements, I stare at myself in the mirror. At the hollow eyes and pale skin. The skinny, unattractive expanse of my chest.

And yet I still see more.

I see the ugly, unlovable parts within.

The pervert.

I spit and splash cold water on my face before stumbling to my room, grabbing the magazine I'd stared at while pathetically giving in to the unmet need inside my body and throwing it in the waste bin. Turning off the lights, I strip and lay myself naked on my bed.

Wondering, there in the dark, if there is a world in which I could possibly hate myself more than I already do.

#~~#~~#

I wake with sunlight streaming in and music blaring from somewhere near my head. Wiping the drool from my mouth and feeling the pain of waking all over again, I roll myself in the sheets, fumbling until my hand connects with the plastic surface of my phone.

The time flashes at me as I answer, and I know that another night of going to bed half drunk on loneliness and liquor caused me to forget to set an alarm. That the day is even more wasted than usual.

And yet there is still so much of it to face.

My thumb finally connects with the button to answer the call, and I place the speaker at my ear with a wince.

"Hhhhhhe-l-lo?"

At the sound of my own voice, I drag my hand down the side of my face before jabbing the heel of my palm against my temple in a series of fast, hard raps.

"Edward, man, how are you?"

My stomach sinks and my eyes close as I curl instinctively into a ball.

"Fffff-f-fine," I lie, but even I can hear the flatness in my voice.

My brother pauses.

"Seriously man, you don't sound good. Are you sure you're OK?"

There is nothing but silence as unbidden tears blur my vision, hanging precariously in the corner of my eyes as I open them.

Staring as always at nothing.

And I don't know what to _do_.

But then my mouth begins to speak as I cover my face with my hand.

"Nnnnno, Em-m-m-mett. I'm not. I'm really, r-r-r-really nnnnnnot."

#~~#~~#

My brother's hand is warm on my shoulder, but as always it is somehow too big, everything about him too close to me, and I withdraw. He is used to this bizarre behavior by now and laughs it off, pressing a beer into my hands and leading me down a corridor toward his den.

In the entryway to the living room, he pauses to wave at his wife, who looks at me with the same dismissive expression she always has while wrestling with the toddler on her lap.

"You good, Rose?"

She makes a face and fusses with something on my nephew's chin. "Yeah, just don't forget that we have to be at your parents' at three."

Emmett nods, but my stomach just sinks further. If he notices_,_ he ignores it, and soon we find ourselves sitting side my side at his computer. I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his forcing me to do this here, when I am the one always 'glued to a screen,' as he puts it so eleoquently.

I recall his statement from our lunch the previous week, shortly after I'd finally confessed to the desperate state of my wretched mind.

"Because, Edward," he'd scoffed. "If I left it up to you it would never get done."

I look on with trepidation and skepticism as he begins filling out a profile with basic information, uploading a picture from when I was an usher at his wedding that no longer even looks like me. I want to protest, but he'll have none of it, assuring me that it's alright to post a picture that's a little more attractive than reality.

Silenced, I sink back into my chair, biting my tongue before I remind him that clearly _nothing_ is attractive about me in reality.

"Isss th-there a ssss-spot on there ffff-for 'is a ssst-tuttering id-d-diot?'" I murmur, but even my not-quite-joke can't pass my useless lips unmangled.

There's a pause, the clacking on the keyboard silenced as Emmett thinks. He is still faced away from me when he says quietly, "You know I hate it when you talk about yourself that way."

Even more nervous now, I gulp down half my beer before resting it in my lap and fussing with the label.

Near silently, I whisper, "And you kn-know that I hhhhate … t-talking." I put the bottle down and take my head in my hands. "Hhhhow the hell am I supp-p-posed to t-talk to a g-g-g-girl?"

He turns and waits until I meet his eyes.

"The only way you get better at anything," he says, clapping his hand against my shoulder and looking at me encouragingly.

"Practice."

#~~#~~#

The whiskey burns as it goes down, a niggling voice in the back of my head reminding me that it is a bad idea.

But then again, absolutely nothing about this adventure is a good one.

Slamming the shot glass down on the counter, I retreat to my bathroom one more time to check myself, staring at my own still-damp but already messy hair, my too-bony cheeks and the circles that still linger beneath my bloodshot eyes. I straighten my shirt and check my fly before turning away from my own judgmental stare.

It is with a profound sense of resignation that I make my way out to my living room and pull on my jacket. I stuff my wallet and my keys into my pockets and sigh as I turn out the light.

Bathed in darkness, I still wonder if this is right.

But after so much time spent bereft, going on a blind date is at least doing _something_.

Resolutely, I jerk open the door. And then finally I step out into the light.


	2. Our Playdate

I wrote this outtake back ages ago as a birthday present for my bestie, bmango, but I'm just getting around to posting it now. It takes place about six months after the last chapter of the story, but before the epilogue. In other words, Edward and Bella are living together but not yet married, they are madly in love, and they are still kinky, kinky bastards.

Thanks to MsKathy for the red pen.

* * *

**Our Lives Unbound, Future-take: Our Playdate**

"Ready, Pet?"

I nod and begin to reach for the handle of the car door, but Mistress stops me, tugging on my sleeve. With a low smile that belies my state of mind, I turn, only to meet the softness of her lips and the scratch of fingernails raking across my scalp. My body succumbs to it, mouth opening and tongue ceding to hers. After all, the rest of me gave in so long ago.

Ultimately, the kiss is brief, and as she eases us out of it, her hand slides down my neck, her fingertips touching the line of my collar. On her wrist, I see her bracelet, glinting brightly in the sun.

My hand wraps around it softly. "I love you, Mistress."

She smiles. "And I you."

Out of the car, we stride together up the walk, my head cast down and my body always one step behind hers. As deep as I am right now, it is easy to anticipate her movements. My entire being is attuned to hers - to what she wants and to what she wants of me.

All day long, we have been immersed in one of our most intense sessions ever. Since dawn, she has kept me as her collared plaything, and in this capacity I have fed her and bathed her. I've made her climax with my mouth and hands, and bent over the sawhorse in our spare room, my flesh has soaked up the lingering sting of her discipline.

Floating within and above my own mind, I have never felt more in tune with myself.

I have never felt more in tune with her.

As she rings the doorbell, I acknowledge somewhere within my mind that my headspace is a good thing and that she's has worked long and hard to get me to this state. We are pushing boundaries today, and it is her knowledge of my misgivings about playing with others that has led us to this arrangement. To hours of subspace and individual connection.

Before I can think much longer on just how connected we are right now, the door before us swings open, and I know that it is time.

My Mistress embraces Katrina readily with air kisses on cheeks and a certain lengthening of both their necks. I watch Mistress's spine straighten, her curves achingly beautiful. My hands can almost feel them, my skin itching to touch her. But that's not my privilege. Not yet.

"Where's your boy?" Mistress asks, looking around the foyer, and Katrina laughs.

"Naked in the basement. Where else?"

Mistress turns to me with a low smile and a comforting touch to my wrist. "Exactly where he should be," she says. Addressing me, she adds, "Pet?"

"Yes, Mistress?"

"Join him."

The glowing space I am ensconced in ripples, but it does not crack, and I nod my consent, kissing her hand before stepping forward and past these two women.

Bella and I have been to Katrina's home before, but only in a social capacity. Never like this. Never to play. Still, my feet remember the floor plan, and I move through the space comfortably, the door to the stairs opening beneath my fingertips. With each step, I descend physically, but I do so mentally as well.

And when I emerge into the cold, stone space below, I am a different man.

Even more than a submissive, I am a toy. And I am not shocked by the sight of another one.

Naked, on his knees, Garrett waits with his head down, leather cuffs adorning but not restraining his wrists. He is hard, and yet I take this detail in with a passing interest only. There is no panic. My Mistress knows my limits, and she will not push these particular ones tonight.

With a still-even haze of calm buzzing through my head, I undress, folding my clothes the way I would were I at home and leaving them in a pile beside Garrett's. My eyes take in the pillow a few feet away from the one that he is kneeling on, and I approach it without hesitation, aware it is for me. Then, with the sort of grace I am only aware of in moments like this, I sink slowly to my knees with my arms behind my back and my eyes down.

Together and alone and wrapped in a low static of anticipation, we wait.

For an untold period of time, my mind drifts in idle circles, everything soft and so calm. Even the sound of feet on the stairs does not lift me from my trance. Nor does the sound of voices.

Only the warmth of a hand against my spine begins to rouse me, and when I hear my Mistress breathe my name across my ear, I feel my body responding. Already hard, my flesh grows only more desirous, a faintly electric hum settling over the surface of my skin, crackling with every brush of her fingertips and palms.

Too soon, her touch retreats, but my gentle level of alertness remains. Behind me, I can hear Katrina and Mistress conversing quietly, my pulse and breathing both increasing when the words are punctuated by a whistling sound - the motion of a weapon cutting air.

"My Pet loves it," Katrina coos, louder now. "Don't you, boy?"

Garrett groans wantonly, and instead of turning me off, it serves to make me more aroused.

"Good boy."

There is the same whistling sound, two, three swishes, and then a cracking slap that makes my cock throb. My Mistress touches me again, her lips on my cheek even as her hand is tipping my gaze up and to the side. "Watch, Pet."

My eyes rise just in time to see Katrina bring the cane back down on Garrett's ass. Her eyes are black and focused, the fine muscles of her arm clear as she executes each stroke. Dressed only in matching black undergarments and lacy thigh-highs, she is regal in her domination. She's beautiful. Sexy.

"Look at him," Mistress whispers. With difficulty, I obey, tearing my gaze from the supple curves of a woman in control to take in the man she is controlling. Naked and grunting, he is already covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Every time she strikes him, he shifts forward, grimacing, but every time, he leans right back into her, begging for more. "See how he asks for each stroke? See how hard he is?"

"Yes, Mistress," I agree.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mistress." It is.

"Not nearly as beautiful as you. When you beg me to hit you."

Melting back into her, I preen.

"Would you like that?"

We have discussed this, and nothing about my wishes for today have changed. "Please, Mistress."

"How you please me," she says quietly, kissing my neck and giving my cock one slow, torturous stroke before letting go and pushing subtly at the center of my back. "All fours, then, Pet."

The vulnerability of the position strikes me with more sharpness than a physical blow as I bend to her command. Naked on a concrete floor, my ass in the air as others look on, I soak in the feeling of being so exposed and yet so safe. I know I'm safe. I know that nothing bad will happen to me here.

I try to remember that as Katrina passes the cane over.

"It's a tricky thing, you see. Try it on mine first," Katrina urges her, and Mistress agrees. With my head down, I am reduced once more to only listening, my body crackling as I hear my Mistress take an instrument of pain and pleasure to the body of another. There is no jealousy within me, though. If anything, I feel my desire and my love both rising as I acknowledge the way she cares for me. I know she will not hurt me.

At least not more than I want her to.

The cane makes a quiet crack against Garrett's backside, and I hear his muffled grunt. I hear the discomfort that lies beneath it.

"Gentler to start," Katrina says. "See?" There is another impact, softer this time, and the difference in Garrett's reaction is clear. His enthusiasm is even clearer.

I want it. I want it to be me.

"Good, good," Katrina says, encouraging her. For a half dozen more strokes, my Mistress works my friend, and I listen intently to the way the noises of wood on flesh vary, imagining how beautiful she must look. My body is vibrating with desire and anticipation to the point where I hear a needy whisper pass through my lips. It is met with a quiet roll of laughter from the side as the sounds of impact cease.

A moment later, my Mistress's hand settles softly on my shoulder, sliding too gently down my spine when I want hard. "My poor deprived Pet," she breathes. "Shall I give him a taste, Katrina?"

"Needy little thing, isn't he?"

Being discussed like this while I am naked on all fours is embarrassing, but it's exciting, too. "He is," my Mistress agrees, her tone as much admiring as it is teasing. I feel her move closer to my ear as she whispers, "And I always give him what he needs." Her tongue licks cruelly at my skin before she adds, "Eventually."

Slowly, Mistress circles me, and I am contradictorily melting and tensing, wanting to appear perfect and feeling like, somehow, when she looks at me, I already am.

Her pacing finally stops, and I can _feel_ her behind me, every sensation intense, like my skin can feel even the currents of air the cane makes as she plays with it. As she plays with_ me_. My posture is just beginning to soften, my uncertainty about when the crack will land just surfacing, when I hear the whistle. The smack.

And my body lights on fire with the bright, white line across my ass. My voice chokes out a cry that is everything at once, pain and desire and satisfaction all mixing as I try to process. The heat dissipates and blooms simultaneously, leaving a warm glow that is the equal to the soft, fuzzy space I have been floating in all along.

"Green," I breathe. I mean it. _More_. "Green."

I lose count quickly of how many times she's struck me. All I can do is float, and everything feels so _good_. The next thing I am fully aware of is the way the blows are lightening, and I can feel my Mistress's signature hand in the way she eases me out of the storm of brilliance and sensation. Eventually, they stop altogether, and I am left panting and sweating, shaking with euphoria that is only a whisper away from climax. My cock is beaded with desire, that part of me so hard when everything else is soft. My backside is still humming with the echoes of pain, a low ache settling in to replace it, and I can almost feel the individual stripes that mar my flesh.

I wonder if they'll bruise. My erection throbs at the thought. I hope they will.

The only sounds in the room are those of my pleasure and of my Mistress's heavy breathing as the world stills. A few crystal moments pass before things begin to move again, footsteps echoing throughout the space. I hear Katrina's low whistle and then her voice as she murmurs, "Beautiful."

"He is, isn't he?" my Mistress asks.

"What I'd love to do to that ass," Katrina muses.

"You and me both."

"Why don't you then? My Pet and I would love to watch. Wouldn't we, boy?"

Garrett's voice is low. Pained. "Yes, Mistress. Please."

"What do you say, Isabella?"

I remain where I am, silent but for my panting, and I can feel my Mistress approaching. Her hand on my tender flesh is excruciating and perfect as she rubs it gently, making several slow passes over the cheeks of my ass before trailing a single finger through the space in between. I groan wantonly when I feel her touch rubbing softly over the sensitive circle of my entrance, and I unthinkingly open my legs.

"You want it, don't you?" Mistress asks, leaning in close before adding, "My little slut. You want me to let them watch me fuck you?"

"Yes, Mistress," I breathe. My cock is aching where it juts forward from my body, untouched and desperately aroused.

"Good boy. Such a good boy."

Her touch retreats, and I can hear movement all around me as the entire feeling of the room subtly shifts. My focus is so intently fixed on my own body and my Mistress that I am hardly aware of what Katrina and Garrett are doing. The moment Mistress returns to me, wet fingers probing gently around my opening, it is as if everything else completely disappears, and I am those few inches of yielding flesh. Implicitly, I know that I am being watched, but nothing matters. Nothing but what my Mistress wants. Nothing but her touch.

A fingertip pushes firmly inside, breaching me, and I moan embarrassingly loudly as I lean back against her, beckoning her to enter me more deeply, wanting only to be hers. Her voice is low, her words blending together with, "That's a good boy," and, "Show me you want me." At her command, I slowly fuck myself on her hand, the pleasure hot and close as she reaches that secret part inside of me that only she has ever found.

Finally, when I am ready, she withdraws her hand, and I keen lowly at the feeling of emptiness that burns inside me, anticipating more. I want more.

"Green," I breathe. It is a begging sound. It is a prayer. "Please."

"Please what, Pet?"

"Please, Mistress. Please fuck me."

I choke on my moan when I feel the cool plastic against the still-hot flesh of my ass, the straps of the harness scratchy where my skin is most tender. In contrast, her lips are soft as they whisper across my spine, her hand cool as she threads her fingers through my hair and lifts my head, tugging it ever so slightly to the side.

And the sight before me makes me throb almost as desperately as the feeling of her lining herself up, poised to push inside.

Katrina sits on a cushion on the floor with Garrett between her legs, his cock hard and flushed with need as she languidly strokes him, her lips pressed just to his ear. His eyes are focused intently on Bella and me, lust plain on every inch of his face as he leans back against his Mistress. I can just make out the way his arms are trapped behind his body, and it strikes me with another spike of arousal that Katrina has bound him and that he revels in it.

It strikes me all over again that I am not alone in loving to be owned.

With my head still gripped tightly in my Mistress's hand, I continue to watch the two of them, my eyes widening at the way Katrina closes her fist more tightly around the head of Garrett's cock at the same instant that my body begins to be forced open. I see the way she strokes downward at the very rate my Mistress pushes into me.

And I see stars as Mistress sinks the entire length of her cock into the depths of me.

"Yes, Mistress. Fuck."

"With pleasure, Pet."

She pulls out in time with Katrina's slow pleasuring of her submissive, and it is on the second stroke of her body within mine that I feel the low vibrations begin, plastic brushing that throbbing center with a low hum that intensifies everything. Already, I am on the edge of coming, but I grit my teeth and close my eyes.

"Look, Pet." Mistress tugs at my hair harder as she begins to fuck me in earnest, and it's good. It's so good. "Look at how they're getting off on me fucking you. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are like this? Naked? Your ass all red from my cane? My cock in your ass, moaning like a little whore?"

"Please, Mistress," I beg. I don't even know what I'm begging for, and I'm babbling. "Please touch me. Fuck me. Harder. God. _Please._"

She intensifies only the motion of her hips, driving in and out of me faster and hitting deeper, the slapping of her skin against the raw flesh of my ass pushing me even harder against oblivion and into the buzzing storm of submission. Of giving. Of begging her to take everything from me.

My control.

My body.

My need to be completely hers.

As the keening noises of pleasure and desperation my throat is making grow wilder and louder, my Mistress too begins to give the subtle signs of her own impending climax, and I groan at the sound of it. Her hand curls tightly around my hip, while my aching cock wishes she would move it just a little lower, knowing the lightest touch will set me off.

"Please, Mistress. So close. Please."

"What do you think, Katrina?" my Mistress asks. Her voice is gravelly and low. "Has he been a good boy? Does he deserve to come?"

I stifle the high whine that wants to break forth after a day of submission without release. An evening of being fucked while others watch. A lingering soreness where she beat me so deliciously.

And yet I hold tenuously to my control, knowing full well that my pleasure is hers to either grant me or deny me.

"I don't know," Katrina muses. "Garrett?"

"Yes, Mistress. Let him come. Please. I want to see." His eyes are focused on my cock, and I swell even further with the knowledge that he's admiring me - that the sight of my pleasure and torment is arousing.

"Very well," my Mistress grunts, and with another few long, deep thrusts into my body that feel like they will shatter me, she reaches down, her hand so soft as it finally clasps around the place where I am hard. I cry out at the contact, the sound shifting to a keening scream as she whispers, "Come, toy."

My arms collapse beneath me with the sheer force of the explosion that happens inside of me, my cock pulsing and surging in her grip, my ass burning with every deep slide of her cock within me, that secret place the center of my world as everything erupts. Pushed forward by the way she's fucking me, I feel the deep rush of my body emptying, come surging forth in thick spurts to paint the floor beneath me, and my eyes close with the force as my forehead hits concrete.

For what feels like years, I stay there, my ass in the air, her body still pounding into me, everything draining forth in an onslaught of pleasure.

And then, just as the full rush of it is ending, I open my eyes. I see the glazed eyes of the people watching me be dominated. Fucked.

I see Garrett arch his back. I watch him come.

And then I hear the unmistakable signals that my Mistress, too, is there. Falling, slumped over me, she calls my name and bites deeply into the flesh above my spine. Finally, groaning, she stills.

And it is as if all the world is silent. Perfect. Clear.

Through the rush of sensation, the euphoria and the overwhelming wonder of being so satisfied, I am dimly aware of what is happening around me. I feel my Mistress withdraw, leaving me empty but so full. With idle fascination, I watch from my position as Katrina kneels and puts her sex to Garrett's mouth. As Mistress rolls me over, holding me gently from behind, we watch him bring his mistress pleasure. But it seems impossible that anyone's pleasure could rival my own.

Finally, after infinite minutes of rubbing herself across his face, Katrina, too, reaches a pinnacle, quietly shuddering before pulling herself off of her submissive, shifting back and bending to kiss him full on the mouth. At long last, she uncuffs him and sinks to sit beside him on the floor, leaning against his shoulder and gazing across the room to stare at Mistress and me. Of any of us, she is the first to laugh. It is a full sound, warm and happy.

And I am the one to join her. As I roll to kiss my own Mistress, wrapping her in my arms, I realize just how happy I am. I'm happy to be here, in love with the woman who brings all my fantasies to life. I'm happy to be able to share it.

I'm happy to be secure enough in Bella's love to push myself past my own shy limits for her.

As we begin to pick ourselves up off the floor, the roles slowly seep away, leaving us as four people, flawed in our own ways and no more or less than what we are. Bella gives me the comfort of her touch, and while it is not our typical ritual of coming down, my hands on her skin are enough to ground me until I can claim that pleasure, too. Dressed as our everyday, non-kinky selves, we part ways from Kate and Garrett in the entryway to the house, and I watch with a low smile as the two women embrace. It does not escape my attention that Bella thanks Kate profusely, and I am left curious, resolving to ask her later about exactly what the two of them discussed while Garrett and I waited.

So focused am I on the two women's interaction that I do not notice Garrett approaching me until he reaches down to clasp my hand in both of his. "Nice show there, Edward," he says, grinning wickedly.

Disarmed, I feel a blush warm my cheeks, and I laugh at myself, realizing that my embarrassment is foolish after what has just transpired. Pumping his hand twice, I echo his smile and say, "You, too."

Bella's hand settles on my elbow, and I fold my arm around her waist, keeping her close as we say our goodbyes and head back to the car.

We are halfway home before she asks if I'm all right.

I turn my eyes to hers for a moment, gaping as if she is insane. This whole day was her idea. Her fantasy. But it's ludicrous to think it wasn't fantastic for me. "Of course," I reply. "I'm … amazing. Still a little floaty." I pause, thinking, as my thumb strokes the back of her palm. "Good. Really good."

Bella seems instantly relieved, and she lifts my hand up to her lips. "I'm so glad to hear it."

Stopped at a light, I have a moment to face her more fully, and I do so with the utmost seriousness as I pull her toward me, mad to kiss her lips. "As long as you're there with me," I tell her truthfully. "As long as you're there … I can do anything."

It's true - in our sex lives and in all the other little ways I am now engaging the world.

With Bella by my side, there is nothing I can't do.

And there are more than a few thing left that I still want to…

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

* * *

**A/N:** As it turns out, there are quite a few things Bella still wants to do, too. One of them will be the focus of another outtake I'm currently writing as part of the **Fandom for Sexual Assault Awareness** compilation.

Here's a hint:

_As she begins to move over me, responding to the guiding motions of my hands around her waist, her lips find my throat and kiss their way up to my ear. "I love that you love it. When I take you like that."_

_My answer is a muted cry as I thrust upward into tight heat. "I do. So much."_

_"I want to know."_

_"To know what?" I manage, my thoughts muddled with the pleasure of making love with her._

_"What it's like." As if she knows I'm still confused, she grabs my hand from where it's resting on her waist and places it on the lush swell of her ass. And then she leads it lower._

_My head snaps up when she drags my fingertips along the crack between her cheeks. "Bella – "_

_"I want you to," she whispers, then leans in closer to kiss me, biting at my lips. "I want you to fuck me. Like that."_

**Donations are due May 31, 2011. To find out more, visit http:/ fandom4saa . wordpress . com**


	3. Our Raincheck :: Foxy Fics

This outtake was originally written for the Foxy Fics charity compilation. Thanks to everyone who donated to help such a great cause. Hat tip to tracitalynne for finally poking me and getting me to post it here.

We're picking up right where Chapter 27 left off. In the story, Edward and Bella's plans for kinky fun had recently been interrupted by Emmett dropping by unexpectedly. This is their "raincheck." Emmett's gone, and kinky fun is back on the agenda.

Antiaol, bmango and mskathy own me. Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. But I own Subward.

* * *

**Our Lives Unbound, Outtake: Our Raincheck**

Naked and half hard, I kneel in the middle of my bedroom, trying to quiet my mind. Always racing, ever reeling, my thoughts only slow when I'm wrapped around my Bella.

They're only ever _silent_ for my Mistress.

After my brother's interruption yesterday, my body is all the more keyed up, my whole being eager for the release of submitting to the one I love. The one who owns me.

But still, I'm restless.

Time and time again, I seek out that space inside my head where I can give myself over completely, but there's so much movement amidst my thoughts. There are memories of awkward silences and shame, my brother's laughter and my father's quiet disdain. There's Bella's face and there's hurt. A hurt I put there when I failed to adequately explain.

And there's fear.

I am afraid to bring my lover to meet the people that have always made me feel so small.

One by one, these concerns drift to the top of my consciousness, and I push them each back down in turn, striving for quiet and for stillness, but neither will come. Finally, much too soon, I hear the sound of a key in a lock, a door opening and pressing closed. Heels click across the floor, and my erection fills, my breath quickening in anticipation.

At the doorway to my room, her footfalls pause. I can feel her gaze, and from the corner of my downcast eyes, I can see the gleaming leather of her boots.

"Pet," she says. Her voice is low, like a caress across my spine. At the sound of it, my body sinks just a little bit deeper into itself, preparing to give and to submit.

God, I want to submit to her.

"Mistress," I echo back to her.

She enters the room with a tangible weight to her presence, the whole space feeling fuller, the air warmer. Already aroused, my body keys up even further, like every hair is standing on end, my skin prickling with want for her touch.

Pausing at the dresser where I have laid out the objects we agreed on using today, my Mistress hums approvingly. "My Pet's been a good boy for me. Getting everything ready."

My cock twitches at the image I have in my mind of her picking each item up in turn, leather and metal in her palm. Rubber.

I think I am most looking forward to rubber.

I am looking forward to something new.

So focused am I on these images that I am only vaguely aware of her movement toward me, and I swallow hard at the feeling of her breath beside my ear, her nails tugging gently on my hair. "Are you ready for me, Pet?"

"Yes, Mistress."

With another sharp tug that makes me grunt, she releases my hair and trails her fingertips down my neck, reaching the clasp of my collar and releasing it. For a brief moment, I am truly naked in every sense, but then cold metal hits my chest, and I exhale deeply at the relief of it.

Licking the shell of my ear, she rasps, "I love seeing my initial here." She runs her nail along the edge of my collar, scratching deliciously at my skin. "It turns me on. Knowing your mine. Does it turn you on?"

"Yes, Mistress," I groan. As if the leaking of my cock were not evidence enough.

Turning her hands sharply, she rakes them down my back hard, and I grunt at the sudden pain, my spine arching. "You like being owned?"

"Fuck!" I gasp. "Yes, Mistress."

"Good," she says. "Because I fucking love owning you." I feel her nails change direction, two long curves of fire trailing across my flesh, and I am left panting, stunned by the level of my arousal when I recognize that she's scratching her initial in my skin. I can _feel_ it, hot and raw against my spine.

I wish I could see it.

"What shall I do to you tonight?" she muses, stepping back. The withdrawal of her touch is a faint buzzing sensation, anticipation and want forming a layer of static stretched taught across my skin.

"Whatever you wish, Mistress."

"True. So true," she says. She begins to circle me, an inspection I am familiar with now, and just the rhythmic motion of her footfalls has my eyes rolling back in my head. I love the way she looks at me.

I love feeling worthy of her attention.

Slowly, evenly, she begins to speak. "I could spank you. Turn that ass red. I could ride your face." Her words wash over me until I am immersed in only her desires and my own, everything else in my head simmering down to a background drone. I relax into the feeling.

I'm where I need to be.

And so is she.

"I could fuck you," she suggest, closer now. "Or I could tie you up and fuck myself. Make you watch until you're so hard you beg for it."

At that image, a needy sound falls out of my throat, and she pauses in her circling. "But first…" she breathes.

I can hear her rustling with something, and I throb as she approaches. She threads her fingers through the hair at the back of my neck and tugs my head back. I acquiesce easily, grateful for the chance to raise my eyes. They rake over her, taking in bare knees and a short skirt in a glossy black. A halter top in a deep satiny red.

And then there's more red and a scent of rubber, followed by fingers in my mouth. "Open."

I do, letting my tongue slide over her skin as it slips between my lips, probing as I suck. "Wider, baby," she purrs. My jaw goes slack as her fingers pull down on my bottom lip. "Good boy." She holds up the sphere of the gag we chose so I can see it and asks me quietly, "You want this?"

Speaking around her fingers, I manage a low, "Yes, Mistress," before letting my jaw relax again.

Before she fits it to my mouth, she ducks to kiss me, wet and hard, lips and tongue. All too soon and yet not soon enough, she pulls away, and a second later, I taste rubber as she slides the ball between my teeth and invites me to bite. With the sliding of the straps around my neck, I feel another layer of my control slipping away, melting in rivulets along my skin and fitting to the lines of leather that secure the gag to me.

"Can you breathe?"

I slow myself down enough to take a few experimental inhales and nod.

"Good boy." She kisses my cheek and over to my ear. "Such a good, good boy."

My whole body thrills at the way my moan of pleasure is stifled by the obstruction in my mouth, and I am positively floating by the time she grips my wrists behind my back and fastens a cuff around each one. Pressing a ball into my hands, she instructs me to squeeze, emitting a sharp squeak as my fingers close.

"If anything goes wrong, Pet, anything at all, that's your safe word. You understand?"

I grunt and nod, and I'm hard. I'm so, so hard.

Her fingertip traces my lips, stretched wide. "Perfect," she murmurs, and I strain for more of her touch. She denies it to me, though, sliding her hand down my chin and then away. Moving to stand behind me, she rubs her hand briefly over my ass, prodding me to sit up taller on my knees before bringing her palm down in a light, stinging slap.

"Since you can't tell me what you did to deserve this, I'll have to remind you." She spanks me again, just a little harder, and it feels good as the heat blooms. "For leaving your position yesterday to answer the door." In a gentle rhythm, she continues, landing a series of low, glowing strokes. Even as she is spanking me, she slides one hand across my hips to stroke once along my cock, making me groan around the gag. "And for touching what's mine."

The impacts increase in intensity, but the pain never rises beyond the point of arousal. This kind of spanking is about play. It's about pleasure.

And my Mistress knows exactly what it does to me.

"You like that, don't you?" As she lands another quick series of sharp slaps across my flesh, I grunt and nod and throb. Her mouth is at my ear, her voice low and gritty. "My little slut."

My body jerks and the most wanton noises strain my throat.

She's never called me that before.

It feels dirty. It feels good.

I want to be dirty for her.

"Yes," she breathes. She reads me so well. "Yes, you are my little slut."

I groan even louder as she trails her hands up my body, the thin welts where she scratched her initial into my back burning low and perfect as she rubs her palms across my skin. They round my shoulders, descending down my chest. When her fingers graze my nipples, I am surprised by the level of sensation she provokes in flesh that has never seemed that sensitive before. Deftly and deliberately, she pulls and twists, pain and pleasure mixing the way they always do when she works me, and before long I am arching, pushing into her touch and begging her to torture me. To _touch_ me.

Just when I am set to beg her through the gag, she pulls her hands away suddenly, reaching down to squeeze my erection before standing and moving across the room. She returns to me with the two little clamps in her hands, sliding one after the other across my lips to get them wet. Even though I know these clamps are made for beginners - that we have set them to their gentlest possible tightness - I feel a thin rivulet of fear rip up my spine as she squeezes and teases at one nipple and then the other, kneeling before me and pulling the first between her teeth. Finally, she gives me the only hint of warning that she will, releasing me from her mouth and meeting my eyes.

The pinch of coated metal around my skin is fire and lust, and I half-scream from the intensity of it, reeling when she shows no mercy, moving quickly to the other with lips and teeth and then the deep bite.

"Good boy," she whispers, holding my head in her hands and pulling my cheek to her chest. I pant and hiss and turn, pressing my face more directly to her flesh, and I need to breath. "Relax, baby." Nodding, I do.

And once relaxed, there's nothing to do but feel.

A thin line of wetness pushes past the barrier of the gag as I give in more fully. It's embarrassing and debasing, and I don't care. I don't mind that I'm a mess for her, spit sliding down my chin and my cock seeping, my nipples chained and my body covered in sweat and the fuzziness of need.

Urging me back, she lets her eyes follow the same path that my internal ones did, and I do not mistake the arousal in her voice as she speaks to me. "You have no idea how good you look like this, Pet. I wish I could take pictures. All chained up like this for me." A single finger loops itself in the line of metal that's draped across my chest, tugging gently, but it still feels like fire.

It feels so fucking good.

I watch, dazed and delirious with want and with the perfect haze inside my head as she stands and slips a hand beneath her skirt, flipping it up and revealing her pussy to me. It's slick and flushed, and I want desperately to put my face to it - to rub my nose along her clit and fuck her with my tongue. I want to suck and love and make her come.

When she slides a finger through her lips, parting them and sliding along that perfect flesh, I whine with desire, and she laughs. "I bet you wish you could taste this." She takes a glistening finger to her mouth and sucks on it noisily. I want her so badly I can scarcely breathe. Gliding her hand along her pussy again, this time she offers it to me, brushing wet, hot _Bella_ across my top lip so I can smell her. Passing the tips of her fingers over the exposed rubber of the gag, she taunts me. "Too bad my slut can't seem to be quiet tonight."

I groan in frustration, but I know that she's just playing with me. And I love it.

"I'm going to uncuff you for a little while," she says quietly, running her hands down my arm. "And I'm going to give you five minutes to get me off with those fingers of yours. If you do, I'll let you come in my pussy. If not, the only release you're getting is from jacking yourself while I watch."

My head falls at the allure of her promise and her threat, and I feel my hands twitch when she tugs at the cuffs. Freed, I flex and follow her, walking on my knees as she backs away to recline on the edge of my bed. I set the safe word ball down on the floor beside my knees and reach for her, but she stops me.

"Wait," she says, turning her head, and I follow her eyes to the clock. As the display turns over, she lets go of my wrist and places my palm on her pussy. "Okay," she breathes. "Now."

I moan and dive in, wasting no time as I brush my fingertips over her skin in the teasing sorts of strokes that always get her going. Leaning my cheek against her thigh, I focus on the hot, wet flesh between her legs, desperate to eat her or to bury myself inside her. I don't, though.

Instead, I am her good little boy. Her docile slut.

Instead, I work frantically with my hands to make her come.

As she begins to open more fully for me, her flesh becoming even wetter and more swollen, I attack her in earnest. With my right hand, I make light circles on her clit, and with my left, I slide two fingertips inside. I know I have no time, but still I only give her a little. I want her desperate. I need her to beg me to give her more.

When she groans my name, I feel my cock twitch. In response, I rub harder, stroke deeper, fucking her with my hand and curling my fingers. She begins to arch, one hand on her thigh and the other on her breast, her pussy soaked, and I can feel that needy place inside of her.

I know I'm close.

God, I need her to be close.

Just as my arousal is becoming desperate, my eyes frantic as they dart to the clock and then back to her sex, she finally begins to tense, and I almost cry with the relief of it when she begins to curse and clench. My teeth bite down on the gag hard at the unbearable arousal of feeling her orgasm on my hand when I want her to come around a different part of me.

I want so badly to feel her pussy wrapped around me.

"Fuck," she groans. One hand comes down to grasp mine, stilling me, and with both reluctance and eagerness, I withdraw. Sitting back on my heels, I look up at her with trust and with such love and lust that I think she might _need_ to restrain me. If she doesn't, I don't know if I can contain the intensity of everything I feel.

I don't know if I can contain _myself_.

Somehow, she peels herself up from the bed and slides her hand through my hair, reaching down to caress the chain between my nipples. "Four minutes and thirty seconds, Pet. Not bad."

I practically preen.

"Get on the bed. On your back."

I am only too eager to obey. As I lie back, my hands instinctively reach up and over my head, and my Mistress is quick to grasp them, securing each in turn and moving pillows, fastening the chain between them to the hook in the headboard I've installed for just this purpose. "Okay?" she asks as she tests the restraints.

They're so much more than okay. Keyed up the way I am, they feel nothing short of necessary.

She puts the ball back in my hand, and I hold it gently, but the only safeword in my head right now is green. As she moves down my chest, flicking her tongue torturously over the clamps, my head keeps repeating it.

_Green._

_Green._

_Green._

She slips off the bed for a moment, and I hear a drawer open and close. A shudder moves through my already straining body, wondering what more she could want to do to me. What more she could want to use on me.

When I hear a quiet buzzing, I almost come off the bed.

My eyes wide, I watch her approaching the bed again and climbing up to kneel above me, one leg to either side of my thighs in a wide straddle. "Open up a little," she urges, and I do, spreading my legs a few inches until they meet the flesh of hers. Holding the bullet vibrator between her forefinger and her thumb, she strokes it lightly across my chest, deliberately hitting the chain between my nipples. My head floating, my body singing, I feel every inch of the path she traces over my flesh, drawing a low, tingling circle across my abdomen before glancing it over the head of my cock.

My growling curse doesn't make it past the obstruction in my mouth, the sensation of vibration all along me almost overwhelming as she drifts the shining metal down toward my balls. For a moment, I wonder if she'll go lower, but she seems uninterested in my ass tonight. Circling each ball once, she slowly pulls the vibrator away, and I find myself panting, near-desperate now to come.

It strikes me with a low pang of arousal that I am helpless, though. I cannot move. I cannot even beg.

I am at her mercy.

And I don't know if I've ever felt so turned on before.

"My beautiful boy," Mistress whispers. "My good little Pet. I bet you want to come, don't you?"

I nod fiercely, looking up into her eyes and feeling the need written all over my face. She shifts to walk her knees up my body, stopping when they are astride my hips. Hovering there, she lowers her hands and slides the vibrator through her wet, pink lips, and I moan at the sight of it, reveling in the sort of taunting that's as much torture as it is delight.

"I did promise I'd let you come inside me. I didn't say when, though."

The sound that rips through me is almost a sob, but I am nowhere near crying. If anything, I'm flying.

"Maybe I should tease you more. Make myself come again and make you watch. Would you like that, Pet? Watching me get myself off when you can't even touch me?"

My only answer is to stare at her plaintively. Every nerve is on overdrive, and I'll take whatever she will give me, even if it's just the joy of watching her come.

To my surprise, she only teases me for another minute, the vibrator circling her clit as her breathing deepens, her stance widening, and she's so _close_. I can feel her wet flesh glancing me, just brushing the underside of my cock. "Or maybe," she breathes, settling down astride me and rubbing her pussy over me, "maybe I want to ride you. Maybe I want you to fill me when I come."

_Please._

Her free hand slips between us, angling my cock, and then with the most delirious sliding, wet and hot, she starts to take me in. My back arches as my head slips inside, my hips begging to thrust while all my will is bent on stilling them. At her own pace, she takes me. Long and slow.

When I'm all the way inside her, she clenches and flexes, nearly coaxing my orgasm from me, but somehow I manage to hold on. She keeps me inside of her, barely moving as she presses the vibrator to her clit more firmly. Through our connection, I can feel it, the low buzzing drilling through my bones and making my balls tighten, the muscles in my abdomen screaming with the restraint needed not to thrust.

"God, you feel good, Pet. I love your cock. It's fucking perfect."

God, I love her pussy.

Leaving me hovering on the edge between madness and release, my Mistress begins to move over me, and my head pushes back into the mattress, my arms taut and my skin screaming. With slow, deliberate strokes, she fucks me. She takes me.

And I want to give her everything.

The only warning I can give her when my orgasm begins to hover too brightly over me is a long, keening groan. At the sound, her eyes connect with mine, her stare fierce.

"Little slut wants to come, doesn't he?"

_Please._

Her eyes close, and I tense, trying desperately to keep my body chained as tightly as she's chained me, and for a few long strokes it works. Her body, too, is flexing, the walls of her pussy tightening, and I can only pray that she'll come with me. That she'll let me …

"Fuck fuck _fuck_," she groans, and she's coming.

God, she's fucking coming, and so am I. I can feel the pulsing gathering in my balls, her body moving faster now, and then her hand drifts up my chest.

It's just as my orgasm crests that she pulls the first and then the second clamp off of me, and I swear I almost black out with the burning mix of pain and pleasure. My chest and groin both on fire, I empty into her and scream into the gag, and I've never felt this _alive_ before.

Never.

But as my Mistress collapses onto my chest, I know it's just a matter of time before I feel this good again.

I know we take each other to this place together.

And I know we'll do it again and again and again.


	4. Our Experiment :: Fandom4SAA

**This out-take was originally written for Fandom for Sexual Assault Awareness. Thanks to everyone who contributed. **

**Thanks to antiaol, mskathy and bmango for beta'ing/pre-reading.**

**Summary****: Out-take from Our Lives Unbound. After years of taking Edward from behind, Bella is curious about what it's like to receive.**

**Disclaimer****: Includes references to BDSM and graphic depictions of anal sex. If Stephenie Meyer wants to claim something like that as hers, then good for her.**

* * *

**Our Lives Unbound, Out-take: Our Experiment**

Bella runs the bath a little hot tonight, and I lower myself into it with a raw hiss, wincing at the heated water on my tender flesh. My reaction doesn't go unnoticed.

She stands beside the tub and stares down at me, frowning. "Are you okay?"

"Mostly," I reply, shifting uncomfortably.

"I knew I was riding you too hard."

After years of rough sex and role play, I am still sometimes dismayed by Bella's misgivings. Sinking back into the tub and trying not to let the low echoes of pain show on my face, I roll my eyes before closing them, self-satisfied. "It was worth it."

The water laps the sides of the tub as Bella gets in, but I don't bother to look quite yet. Now that the initial sting of entering the bath has receded, the heat of it feels good, and all I want to do is relax. To bask in the vibrant hum of pleasure and life that comes from letting my Mistress use me.

Bella, though, is clearly still perturbed. "I will never understand you."

"Of course you don't," I mumble. "Sadist."

"Masochist."

"Damn straight."

A low smile spreads across my lips at the way Bella huffs at our exchange. With a sigh, she begins to rub a washcloth up and down my calves, inching higher as she goes. I am utterly sapped, but still, when she reaches to the space between my legs, I open them wider, inviting her touch.

"Feels good," I murmur, shifting slightly as she runs a fingertip along my reawakening arousal before cupping my balls.

My eyes snap open when her hand drifts lower, though, grazing the place where she just took me, and I back away instinctively.

Her own gaze seems to burn. "Damn it, Edward. Why didn't you safeword?"

"Because." I sit up and pull away from her touch, grabbing her hands and gripping them tightly. "You. D-did. Not. Hurt. Me."

"You're sore."

"I'm always sore when you fuck me like that! But you don't see me complaining about it. It feels _good._"

"But – "

I continue speaking right over her. "Other than being inside you, I can't think of anything that feels better. A little bit of soreness afterward is a small price to pay." Smirking, I continue, "And you know I g-get off on that part anyway."

She shakes her head but doesn't fight me anymore, so I let go of her wrists. Spreading more soap on the washcloth, she resumes washing me, leaning in closer as she rubs circles on my chest. But from the way her teeth tease at her lip, I know she's thinking.

"It really feels that good?"

I shrug. "To me, it does."

"How so?"

We've discussed this sort of thing before, each trying to help the other understand what is about our play that is so satisfying. Only, coming at it from such different sides, it's always hard to explain.

"I don't know," I begin, taking another washcloth from the basket by the tub and preparing to care for her the way that she has cared for me. "It hurts, but it's just_ good_. It's all mixed up together. Until you get all the way inside, and then ... " I harden just thinking about it. "When you hit my prostate. Jesus."

She is listening in rapt attention, and I find myself moving closer to her, finally leaning in so close that I can breathe across her ear. "It makes me come so hard. There's nothing like it."

I kiss her jaw and pull back a little to find her gaze intent. Her hands close on my face, pulling me back toward her mouth and kissing me deeply. When she releases me, it is with her breathing hard. If I were to reach between her legs, I know I'd find her pussy slick and ready.

"Well, when you put it that way," she says raspily. Reaching down, she slides a hand along the length of me, and I groan at the relief.

"Come here."

The water splashes over the side of the tub with the sudden motion as I slide to sit with my spine against the back of the tub, pulling her with me and eliciting a squeal. We need no prelude or preamble for me to place her on my thighs, her knees to either side of me and her pussy hovering just above my cock. Even though I know she's ready, I take a moment to kiss her mouth and tease her nipples before sliding one hand down to cup her, probing the silken skin that I long for.

I only take two passes at her clit before she's pulling my hand out of the way and sinking down, taking me inside in one sure stroke.

"Fuck, Bella," I groan, my head falling back as her hips meet mine.

As she begins to move over me, responding to the guiding motions of my hands around her waist, her lips find my throat and kiss their way up to my ear. "I love that you love it. When I take you like that."

My answer is a muted cry as I thrust upward into tight heat. "I do. So much."

"I want to know."

"To know what?" I manage, my thoughts muddled with the pleasure of making love with her.

"What it's like." As if she knows I'm still confused, she grabs my hand from where it's resting on her waist and places it on the lush swell of her ass. And then she leads it lower.

My head snaps up when she drags my fingertips along the crack between her cheeks. "B-Bella – "

"I want you to," she whispers, then leans in closer to kiss me, biting at my lips. "I want you to fuck me. Like that."

A rough surge of desire and fear shoots through me. "Have you...?"

"Never," she admits. "You'd be the first. The only."

"Oh, God." I push into her more quickly now, trying to imagine how it would feel. Tighter. Hotter. I swallow thickly before letting my fingertips explore, grazing the tight circle of flesh where she says she wants me. But still, I am not entirely assured. "I c-couldn't hurt you."

"I'd tell you. You know I would." She kisses me deeply, and I can feel the soft walls of her pussy flexing around me. "Will you, baby? Will you fuck my ass?"

I have only time to hiss out, "Yes," before she's clamping down on me, coming hard and whimpering my name. I help her ride it out and then return my hands up to her hips, thrusting up into her for a few last pumps before I empty, releasing in a hard, hot stream.

As soon as I am done, she collapses onto me, her arms around my shoulders and her face against my neck.

"Wwwhat brought that on?" I ask in breathless wonder. "I had no idea you wanted ... that."

She laughs and pulls back to press her lips against mine. "I've always been curious."

"But you don't like pain."

"No, but _somebody_ keeps telling me how good it can feel." Pausing for a moment, she places her palm against my heart. "And I want ... I want to have something I can do with you. Something neither of us has ever done before."

I raise an eyebrow at her. "And you've brought the st-strap-on out for how many of your other boyfriends?"

"You know what I mean," she says, slapping me playfully. "Something that isn't about submitting or domming."

"I know." Holding her in my arms, I urge her to lay her head back down against my shoulder. For a few minutes, we sit there just like that, my body still inside hers. Only, now that the fog of sex and impending orgasm has begun to fade, I feel my nerves returning. "You rrreally want that?"

"I do."

"When?"

She laughs and strokes my hair. "Are we really trying to schedule butt sex?"

"I just want to know."

"Whenever you're ready."

"Okay," I say. Somehow, I manage to keep my voice steady.

Inside, though, I feel anything but.

...

Bella doesn't repeat her proposition, but so subtly she teases me, raising an eyebrow when I press my hips against her backside while she's cooking. Leaving the lube out on her nightstand, when we both know it belongs in our playroom.

I tease myself, too.

After making love one night, I lie there beside her in our bed, watching her breathe. She is on her stomach, the dim light gleaming off her sweat-slicked skin. So beautiful.

With a careful hand, I ghost my fingers over her spine and lower, touching the shallow hollow of her sacrum before following the curve of her backside. I imagine pulling those cheeks apart.

And I imagine inching so slowly, so carefully inside.

The next day, while she's at work, I take a break from editing my novel to look for answers about how to pursue this fantasy. It is a dirty feeling to Google, "anal sex," but I can't deny that I have searched for advice on things that have been much, much worse. In the end, everything I read is in line with what she's done to me, but that is no surprise. I know full well the difference between the slow, delicious slide of her cock into my body when she has been patient in preparing me and the sharper pain of being taken more suddenly. And while I enjoy them both, I know my lover well enough to guess what she would want.

I know how cautious she is in ceding control of her body. And as always, I am humbled that she would hand that power to me. Especially when I am so hesitant to take it.

A week to the day after she suggested trying anal sex, I find myself behind her, naked and wanting. She is on all fours, looking back at me over her shoulder as I line myself up, sliding the head of my cock along the length of her slit before circling her clit. Finally pushing inside, I feel the slick heat of her pussy surrounding me, and I hold her hips inside my hands. The flesh there is so soft, the curves of her ass so round and full.

Thrusting slowly, I watch my own hand in fascination as I pull the cheeks apart and slide my thumb toward her other opening. Without entering, I simply press against it, rubbing gently and measuring her body's reply. At her low moan, I push my cock into her more fully, probing slightly harder with my thumb.

"Edward. Please, baby."

I shudder with pleasure as she squeezes with her pussy, and the very tip of my thumb moves just inside.

All the air seems to leave her lungs, and she freezes. My heart does, too, until she hisses, "Yessss."

Groaning with relief and with the eroticism of touching her this way, I continue fucking her, keeping my thumb just where it is, but I want to press deeper. To see how much of me she'll take. When she whispers for more, I let out another low moan and bend to kiss her spine, pulling out of her with a tremor, missing the heat of her already.

But I can't hurt her. I can't.

"What – ?"

I kiss my way down to her hip, where I dart my tongue to taste her skin and murmur, "P-patience."

The bottle that's been taunting me for days now feels strange inside my hand. Once or twice, my Mistress has ordered me to prepare myself before she fucks me, but I've never been in control like this before. Keeping my trembling just beneath the surface, I pour a couple drops into my palm before returning to my Bella. She's sunk down onto her forearms, her ass on display for me. Begging for me.

Wetting my fingers with the lube, I slide once more against the tight circle of her opening. "D-does that feel good?"

"Yes," she breathes.

"More?"

"God, yes."

So slowly, I ease the tip of my thumb once more inside. This time, though, I keep pressing. Her entire body stills beneath me, and my chest aches with the tension and worry, but then I hear her long moan. I feel her pressing back against me.

"You're so sexy," I whisper, rubbing her hip with my other hand and dropping kisses all along the space between her shoulder blades. "So beautiful."

"He says with his finger in my ass," she says, her voice gravelly and lilting with the hint of a barely suppressed laugh.

"Tell me how it feels."

"Good. Tight. It hurts a little but – _oh!_"

I slide my thumb in deeper while she's talking, slowly fucking her with it as she sucks in a shuddering breath. "Still good?"

She nods forcefully, then drops her head. Part of me wants to push this all the way tonight, to give her what she asked for and to take what I need, but caution stops me. Deciding that we've pushed enough, I keep my thumb inside the clenching tightness of her ass and move to kneel behind her once more. "Someday," I whisper as I use my other hand to guide myself toward her pussy, sliding back inside that heat with a low groan. "Someday soon."

"Please."

"You want that?" With more confidence than I am sure I have, I fuck her with my cock and with my thumb, pressing one and then the other, withdrawing and proceeding. "You want me in your ass?"

"Fuck, Edward. Yes."

The rush of pleasure and pride floors me, my balls tightening.

And then I make the mistake of looking down.

The list of fantasies that I've fulfilled with Bella is a mile long. Most of them involve my body tied down or taken, my submission so integral to the pleasure that I crave. This is none of those things. But there is still something so primal to it. There is a sense of claiming and of working to a place where we can experiment this way. Where I can push myself to give her anything.

Where my thumb is deep inside her ass and my is cock glistening, sliding in and out of her pussy.

"Jesus, Bella. I'm ... "

Her position shifts, and I feel her fingers graze my balls as she gathers wetness on her fingertips before reaching up to touch her clit.

For a few infinite moments, we are lost inside this pleasure. The room is reduced to a low throb of hot sliding and her body's grip, sounds of sex and fucking and of her hand on wet flesh.

And then, when I cannot take another instant of this torment, I feel everything gather in the center of my body. In one long, desperate rush it pushes outward, and I clench my eyes and close my throat, feeling the strain in my lungs as they scream her name.

Endlessly, I pulse, bracing myself with one arm as she collapses to the sheets, trembling. Spent, I hold myself above her and continue pushing, feeling the way her body tenses and clamps down, and I beg her in babbling sentences to come.

When she finally does, I feel it everywhere. In my oversensitive cock. In the way her muscles squeeze my thumb.

Careful not to crush her with my weight, I let myself fall, kissing so gratefully at the place where neck gives way to shoulder. She turns her head to face me, her skin flushed and the smile that paints her mouth so wide. Still, I am unprepared for the sudden shaking of her body and the volume of her rasping laughter.

"That was fucking awesome."

I feel something glowing inside, my own smile stretching the corners of my mouth. "I love you," I whisper as I kiss her lips.

"So much," she agrees, then cranes her neck to meet my kiss. "So, so much."

...

A few days later, I am cleaning up the playroom, taking a cloth to polished leather to remove the signs of what we did the night before. As I do, I cannot help but think of how I'd lain there, bound and gagged. Red from my spanking and begging for her to take me in her mouth.

I wash our toys with reverence, but as I go back to the chest that houses them, I am struck by one of them. Licking my lips, I open up the bottom drawer and stare at metal and plastic.

I know how each one feels. How they hurt me and arouse me. How they make me come.

After thinking for a moment, I select a medium-sized plug from the collection – one I know I've sterilized – then close the drawer.

If Bella sees it by the lube when she comes home, she says nothing of it.

That night, after dinner, we sit beside each other on the couch the way we often do, her head against my chest and my arm around her shoulder. There is a movie playing, but I scarcely catch a word.

Instead, I touch her. I kiss her temple and her hair and run my fingers down her throat. In the middle of a love scene, I rub the soft swell of her breast and squeeze her hip, pulling her against me to leave her no doubt that I am hard.

"I want you," I whisper in her ear.

After that, she doesn't seem to focus on the movie, either.

As the credits roll, my hands and mouth grow more bold. I brush the apex of her breast and slide my palm along her thigh up to the curve of her ass. So softly, my lips drift from her ear to her jaw down to her throat. And by the time I kiss her mouth, she is shifting against me, climbing over me to straddle me.

"Fuck," she hisses as she presses herself against my cock, grinding hard, and I moan out my agreement. "Thought that movie would never end."

"Me, neither." I pull her harder against my flesh, circling my hands around her hip and thigh. Her teeth close on my neck, a delicious jolt of pain arcing through my chest, and I can feel my will receding.

I want to let her take me. To lie back and strip her down and watch her ride me, her naked breasts inside my hands.

But I'm ready to give her more.

"G-get up," I urge her, pushing lightly at her hips. She looks back at me in confusion.

I am not exactly one to give directions.

Kissing her mouth, I shift us toward the edge of the seat and slide my hands to her thighs. "Bedroom." As I stand, she squeals and clings to my shoulders, wrapping her legs around my waist.

"Edward! What – "

"You'll see."

At our door, I pause to lean her back against the wall so I can turn on the little paper lanterns that I love, but as I am reaching past her, she grabs onto my shirt. My fingers barely graze the switch before I am pulled back to her, caught in a blistering kiss. "Edward Anthony Cullen," she pants, deep and low. Sounding less like my lover and more like my Mistress, she asks me, "What on earth do you think you're doing?"

I kiss her back and cup her ass, shifting her against me so my hips press to her pussy, driving her back against the wall. "You."

Without another word and with no ceremony, I lift her higher against me and stumble backwards before throwing her onto the bed. Even as I am crawling up her body, though, I make sure to check that she is with me. Her legs and arms are open, her eyes glazed. Hungry.

Still, when I reach her mouth, I have to ask, whispering, "Is this okay?"

She nods and puts her palm to my shoulder and my hip, drawing me closer.

Deep in my heart, I know that we will never switch. She has never asked for it, and I have never offered. Sometimes, though, when we are in our bedroom making love, the lines are blurred between submissive and dominant. It doesn't scare me like it used to, lying atop her. Taking her.

I am sure in what I am to her. And I am confident enough in what I know my body can do to hers.

We strike a pace between the frantic fucks we're sometimes driven to and the slower kind of loving that I insist on when her beauty is too much to bear. Sure hands find hems and buckles, zippers and buttons. When we are finally both bare, I take a single stroke along the cleft between her legs, feeling the slickness and the heat of her. And then, even though it pains me, I withdraw.

Making sure that she is watching me, I reach over to her nightstand for the lube and plug. She does not stop me. Not when she sees the plastic in my hand. Not when I trace its tip along her body, circling nipples and navel and down to her hip. So slowly, I let it slip along the juncture where her pussy meets her thigh.

Then, with my tongue, I follow it.

Over breasts and stomach and to the curve of her hip, I lick and suck, moving slowly to the tender flesh between her legs. The moment I caress her clit, a soft brushing of my lips, she melts, a long, low sigh helping her body to deflate. For a while, I love her just like that, fitting my mouth against her and feeling her relax and tense. I feel her giving herself over, trusting me to give her what she needs.

I know the sensation all too well.

When she starts to the make the kinds of noises that imply a shift from accepting my touch to chasing something deeper, I shift back on my haunches, sliding one hand to the back of her thigh to push it up. She opens for me beautifully, and soon I can see everything. _Everything._

Slowing slightly in my efforts with my tongue, I work the cap of the bottle open to coat the plug with slickness. When both it and I are ready, I slide my mouth against her pussy and look up at her.

At first I only tease her, pressing the plastic to her other entrance with just the slightest touch. She tenses, and I pull my face away to ask breathily, "Okay?"

"Okay," she agrees. One hand comes down to touch my neck and guide me back toward her clit. Keeping my eyes on her face, I obey, making my lips soft as I surround that needy flesh.

And as I do, I press.

The very tip of the plug slides in, and Bella groans, a sound I feel like a caress. "Edward." It's a low sound. A needy one.

Closing my eyes with relief, I move my tongue and my hand. Inch by inch, I work the plug inside, pausing constantly to fuck her with it in slow, short strokes. Bit by bit, she opens for me.

And the noises she makes.

God, the way she breathes.

My Bella's never been a quiet lover, but she does show some restraint. Not tonight, though. Tonight, every movement that I make evokes a grunt or a sigh. There is my name, and there is, "Baby."

And then there are no words. Just the sounds of sex. Of pleasure.

When I reach the very widest part, she squeaks and tenses, and I pause, retreating slightly as I suckle with my mouth. "It's okay," she promises. After another minute of caresses and slow strokes inside her ass, I advance again.

This time, she makes no protest.

This time, it slides all the way home.

Our groans twin together in a matching, soaring tone. Achingly hard against the sheets, I am almost overcome to see the way the base rests flush against her ass. With my lips so slick with her, I pull my face away to breathe and press my mouth against her thigh. "I can't wait 'til that's my cock," I whisper. My eyes clench closed against the pain of wanting.

Of being so, so aroused.

I pull the plug back slowly and then push it in again. Bella howls, her hands so tight in my hair. It's a good sound, though. I know it's good.

Opening my eyes, I look at her, and I know that my expression tells her everything. "You want that? You want me to fuck you?" For emphasis, I thrust with the plug again. "Like this?"

"Yes," she groans. Her breath feels almost dangerously fast, and I can see the way her sex is convulsing. Wanting.

I know my Bella needs to come.

Ordinarily, I'd let her. I'd fit my mouth back to that ripeness, and I'd suck and bite and tongue. But I know I need her desperate. I need her so, so close.

From my own experience, I _know_.

"Tonight?" I ask.

"Yes."

My cock throbs. "Now?"

"_Yes._"

"Fuck," I breathe, and then I press my tongue once more against her clit. But before it can go too far, I withdraw.

As fast as I can move, I am crawling up the bed toward my nightstand. The box of condoms there is new, and I fumble to open it with my hands as needy as they are. Bella and I have never used them, and it is a strange thing to tear one off again after so much time.

It is a strange thing to use protection when I have absolutely nothing to fear.

With the packet in my hand, I throw the rest back in the drawer and turn back to Bella to find her panting, legs open, the base of the plug both alluring and obscene. With her eyes on my cock, she slides a hand down to her wetness, slipping a finger through that flesh and trembling as she rubs a little circle on her clit.

My heart pounds as I reach out and grab her wrist to stop her. My chest is tight, my throat rough. But still, I manage to choke out, "Not yet."

Her pout is both frustrated and silly as she lets me move her hand back up to lie beside her head. "Then when?"

I kiss her deeply, surging with arousal when she licks around the edges of my lips. Without breaking the kiss, I get the packet open, and groan as I stroke myself and roll the condom on. "When I'm inside you."

At that, she grabs my shoulders, sliding hot palms down my back to rest against my hips. She tugs and pushes, urging me to settle on my knees between her legs. I find the lube again, tilting it to pour some in my palm, but she wrests it from me.

"Let me." She makes her fingers slick before surrounding me, sliding up and down my length and squeezing none-too-gently.

God, it feels good.

Again, I push her hands away, but this time the tremor in my limbs is more unbridled need than discomfort at the fact that I am telling her what to do. She huffs, but lets me do this my way and at my pace.

Slow.

Everything has to be slow.

With renewed focus, I work the plug in and out a few more times, and with each stroke, she moans. When I finally remove it, my eyes are drawn down to that opening, watching it close.

"I'm a lot bigger than that," I whisper as I set the plastic down.

Her hand is on my hip, urging me close. "So I bet you'll feel even better."

Lying over her, I let my mouth brush hers, and at the same time, my cock strokes just against her hip. "You have to tell me. If it hurts."

"I will," she promises.

I know exactly how I trust her with my body.

I know she's trusting me with hers.

With one hand, I line myself up, pressing at that persistent tightness. And then, so slowly, so carefully, I push.

"Jesus Christ." My other palm hits the mattress with a smack, my forehead pressing to her neck with the intensity. With just the head inside of her, I stop, breathing raggedly. Her ass is almost painful, it's so tight. And hot.

So hot.

Her hand digs into my side and her legs are tense around me. Remembering myself, I lift my head and press a wet kiss to her neck before looking up at her, only to find her eyes closed, her chin tilted back. With all the tenderness that I can muster, preparing to fuck her like this, I stroke her hair and flutter fingertips along her throat.

"Keep going," she croaks.

My hips jerk at just the thought, but I steady them after sinking less than half an inch inside. "Holy fuck," I breathe, and then, "Are you okay? Tell me if you're okay."

"Yes." Her head is nodding jerkily, but her eyes are still closed.

"Relax for me," I beg. I kiss her lips and eyes, her cheeks and her nose.

Bit by bit, she does. And then I slip a little deeper.

She groans out loud as I pull back in an incremental thrust. And I can hear the change. Working so slowly, just like with the plug, I tease and push, gradually getting myself deeper and deeper. And the farther I go, the more she accepts me.

When finally my hips are flush against her ass, she exhales out a keening moan that makes me pulse. The sensation of her body wrapped around me like this is overwhelming. Good and frightening. Strange and wonderful. Lifting up onto my arms, I look down between our bodies and shudder at the sight of it. At my body buried deep inside her.

It's illicit. Wrong. Dirty.

"So amazing," I whisper.

It is.

Her eyes roll back in her head with the slight jostling, and she does something internally, squeezing. Tight becomes vice-like yet again.

"I have to move," I beg. "Please."

"Yes," she urges. As I pull back, watching myself slide out of her ass, she begins again the low chorus of wordless noises and panting breaths. Shaky moans. "So full. God, I feel so _full__._"

"Is it good?"

It's exquisite.

Perfect.

_Please, please, please be good._

"Yes," she breathes. "It's good. _Oh!_"

I slide back in with a long, slow thrust. Things are building too quickly now. I cannot look.

"Now, Bella. Touch yourself now."

She doesn't hesitate. A slender hand sneaks in between us, and I groan at the feeling of her wrist against my abdomen, the rough, quick motions that she uses when she's just about to come.

Letting one arm bend, I lean down to press my lips to just below her ear. "I want to feel it. When you come. Can you? Can you – "

I'm interrupted by a scream the likes of which I've never heard from her before, and for a moment I am terrified, heart thundering, cock jerking as I try to pull out. Her other hand clamps down, though, one hard pull against my ass until I sink back all the way inside of her.

And then I look at her.

I feel her pulsing.

"Oh my God." My eyes close, and I cannot take a moment more.

Not a second.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my – "

My own mouth twists, my head falling back.

The _tightness_.

It's so sudden, the way my pleasure hits me. Wave after wave, and through all of them, I'm falling, her cries still echoing.

And I'm _in_ her. Where no one's ever been before.

Where no one will ever be again.

Explosively, violently, the feeling tears through me until I have nothing left, leaving me a shaking mass atop her, wanting to collapse, but knowing that I can't. I can't hurt her.

Even as I am still trembling with my aftershocks and with hers, she places her hands on either side of my face and pulls me toward her. I open my eyes to find hers shining so brightly, her smile wide and beautiful.

And then we kiss and kiss and kiss.

...

Afterwards, we both head toward the bathroom. Part of it's because we are, literally, dirty.

Part of it's because this seems like where we're meant to go after we've pushed ourselves.

It doesn't feel quite right to run a bath the way we do when she has topped me, though. At the same time, we both suggest, "Shower?"

"Perfect," I respond.

As we wait for the water to heat, I go to retrieve the plug. Ever since we moved in together, it's become part of my job as her submissive to clean up after our scenes. And so I am all the more surprised when she stops me and takes the toy from me. "My turn," she insists.

I look at her in confusion, but she just rolls her eyes at me and slaps my hip. Shrugging, I let her take on this responsibility and step into the tub. I let the heat of the spray wash over me.

When she is done, she joins me in the there. Slowly, we wash each other. Much like when we bathe after a session, she allows me to hold her, there beneath the spray.

And much like those times, as we stand there, my thoughts find their way to my throat. "Was that what you wanted?"

"You're always what I want," she answers quietly. I am just about to protest, when she turns to face me and pulls me down to meet her lips. "And yes. It was."

"Did you like it?"

Bella nods. Flushed from the heat of the water, I can barely tell that she is blushing. But she is. "It was intense. Really intense. But good." She hesitates, and I wait for her to find her thoughts. "I liked ... You know I prefer to be on top. But with you, I trust you so much. When you're that confident ... I love it when you just go for things sometimes like that."

"You make me confident."

"I know." She wraps her arms around my waist and rests her cheek against my chest, facing away from the spray. Her quiet chuckle breaks the heaviness of the moment. "And how about you? Dumb question, maybe, but did you like it?"

"Amazing," I groan, life returning to my cock at just the memory. "Though there are other things that I like more."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." I lean in close before whispering, "Like when you do that to me."

She leans back and smirks evilly, reaching up to touch my collar. "Good. Because tomorrow, it's your ass's turn."

I growl against her throat and hug her closer. "Yes, Mistress. Yes, please."


	5. My Mistake

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I own subward.

Thanks to **Bmango** and** MsKathy**.

Thanks also to** kismit1496**. She'll know why in a minute.

This out-take happens about two years after the last chapter of the main story and well before the epilogue. Edward and Bella are living together in her old apartment, not yet engaged, but still very much in love. And they're still kinky bastards.

For the record, I know nothing about BDSM. All I know is what's in subward's heart.

Fair warning: This one is not entirely for the faint of heart.

* * *

**Our Lives Unbound Out-take: My Mistake**

"Please, Mistress." There is an edge of desperation to my voice that terrifies and thrills me. Tied to every corner of the bed the way I am, her body riding mine relentlessly, there is nothing I can do. No way to go slow or to refocus my attention. The words I am supposed to whisper in my head to calm myself are gone.

They are all gone.

There is only her. On top of me. All around me. Hot and slick and dressed in thigh-highs and heels and a corset and—

_"Please_. I can't— I— Mistress—"

It's too much, and I can feel the first wave. She slows a little in the way she rides me, but I know she's almost there, her eyes closed as she leans back and groans out, "Wait, Pet. Just a little..."

It's.

Too.

Much.

My chest is already heaving, the sting too painful in my lungs at disappointing her as everything spills over. My vision goes blank in a hot rush of tainted pleasure, an orgasm I do not want to have but which I lack the means to prevent.

She realizes it a moment after I do.

Immediately, she lifts herself up off of me, leaving the least few pulses to land in white ribbons on my abdomen, shameful heat across my skin, burning.

My Mistress is still wanting, though, and she straddles my face. Through the ache of having failed her – through my own revulsion at the way she tastes of my forbidden release – I fit my mouth to hot flesh in a fruitless effort to redeem myself. Closing my eyes against the threat of angry, frustrated tears, I lick and suck. I try to be less than worthless as her toy.

But all I feel is empty. Disappointing.

For months now, we have been working on this. On trying to control my pleasure. On lasting longer, no matter how she teases me or tortures me. Sometimes my orgasms are easy, and sometimes she makes me work for them.

Sometimes I fail, and sometimes I succeed.

Here, in this moment, though, all I can think of is failure. Even with her climax ripping hot against my tongue, I know. I know that, this time, she promised she would punish me.

Finally, she spasms, collapses over my body and breathes. Her body is still tense in spite of her release, and I know she's thinking of exactly what I am. Of what she will do to me.

In the past, there have been spankings. An extra day spent on my knees without the hope of her touching me.

But I know this will be worse.

She gets up without a word, and a harsh cold settles in my stomach as I lie there, helpless and restrained. As I wait. Minutes later, she returns and takes a washcloth to my flesh, wiping away the evidence. But it can't removes the traces of it from my heart.

In the back of my mind, it registers that this is strange. We usually move swiftly from our playroom to the bath to coax and touch and help each other down. There we wash away our roles. We wash away the sweat and lube and come.

But she is washing me now.

Slowly, finally, my Mistress begins to speak. "You've disappointed me, Pet."

I've disappointed myself.

"I'm sorry, Mistress—"

"Shush." The cloth drags roughly over skin that is painfully sensitive, and I wince as I obey her order for silence. "After how hard I've worked to train you. When all I asked was for another minute. What are you supposed to do when you get too close?"

My voice is a whisper. It breaks on every other word. "Sonnets. I recite sonnets in my head."

"And did you?"

"I tried." There is a pinch at my side that makes me whimper. "I tried," I say again, but I feel the first hot drop of a tear as it winds its way toward my ear. "But I failed."

She works in silence for another moment, and I chance a single glance. Her face is down, her expression intent. One hand flexed against her side, and in it, I see all of her comfort. Her instincts to treat me with love and with care.

She loves me by keeping me in check, though. She cares for me with discipline she knows I need.

"Apparently..." she says quietly. "Apparently, my punishments have not been enough." With a single motion, she discards the washcloth on the floor and reaches to her side to pick up something I have not seen before. Not in real life.

My pulse rate rockets and my mouth goes dry.

"You know what this is, Pet."

"Yes," I rasp. "Mistress, please—"

I am silenced with a look.

"You've forced my hand, Pet. If the only thing you treasure is your cock, then you've left me no choice for how to punish you."

We've talked about this. How, while I am willing to try almost anything, this is the sort of punishment that makes me most uncomfortable.

How I give her everything.

But there are some things I still want to control.

She must be so, so disgusted with me.

The tears fall faster now, but I keep the sobs inside as I watch on with a near-clinical detachment at what she's doing to my body.

It's not my body that I'm worried about now. It's my heart.

It's my regret.

"It's called a CB-6000," she says as she coats my now-soft cock and balls with lube. "Only the best for my Pet. Even when he's been bad."

Her hands are not completely steady as she slips a piece of clear plastic behind my balls, attaching another piece above my cock to create an interlocking ring. She takes her time, smoothing the skin away and making sure that nothing pulls.

I don't mean to cry. To be such a mess as she is taking care of me, her love so clear even as she is doing this to me. But as she slides the clear tube over my cock, I cannot help it. I whimper out, "I'm sorry," and, "Forgive me."

When she inserts a little plastic lock through the pieces, my voice falls off, and I close my eyes.

Her voice is weary as she strokes my thigh. "It's supposed to be safe for upwards of a month."

My eyes pop open.

"But we won't leave you like this for that long. Three days should do."

I can't remember the last time I've gone three days without coming. Between Bella's sex drive and my own idle masturbation, I have developed quite an appetite. Already, I am panicking.

I don't know how I'll concentrate. How I'll work. How I can possibly...

Her lips are kissing wetness from my face, and then her hand splays out across my jaw, forcing me to focus and to look at her. "You are so strong, Pet. You can do this."

And though the weight of punishment is still heavy on my chest, the very worst of my frustrations and fears dim at the love in her eyes.

"Now thank your Mistress."

"Thank you," I choke out. And my gratitude is as real as everything else that I feel.

With gentle, nimble hands, she unties me from the bed, and I sit up experimentally, unreasonably aware of the piece of plastic that imprisons my cock.

Of how, even as she reverses my collar and returns my body to me, she owns me.

We make our way to the bath the way we always do, but we each seem quiet today. I hold her in my arms and kiss her hair, but the chastity cage is between us, literally and metaphorically. It is something we must talk around.

Until Bella addresses it directly. "I know I said three days," she says. "But we'll see how it goes. Your first time wearing something like that ... I don't want to hurt you or anything."

"I know," I answer, stroking the bracelet around her wrist.

I do.

"You know I'm not really mad, right?"

I shrug. It's hard to explain how the lines get blurred. How my failures make me angry with myself. How the fear of disappointing her is punishment itself.

"I hate messing up," I mumble. "I hate being a d-disappointment to you."

She shifts in the bath, and water sloshes to the lip of the tub. Facing me, she strokes damp hair from my temple and touches my cheek. "_You_ could never disappoint me, Edward. Never. Something you did, maybe. _You_ never fail me. You do your best, and I am always so proud of you. So amazed by what you give me. If the punishment's too much... If..."

"We'll see," I break in. I force a smile, but I know it's not entirely genuine. "I'll try."

"Okay. But you have to promise to tell me if it's too much. It's a punishment, so it's not supposed to be fun, but if it's a problem, physically or just mentally, or ... I want to know, okay?"

"Okay." We kiss gently, but it's just a peck. I'm afraid to make it anything more.

Already, just thinking about not wanting to get hard, I am becoming ever more so. It's uncomfortable to begin to fill the plastic cage this way. Strange.

Arousing.

I groan.

These very well may be the longest three days of my life.

...

The next morning, I wake with discomfort, a not-quite-pain between my legs. I need only reach down to scratch the skin around my sac to remember why. My would-be morning wood is pressed against the plastic of the cage, and my whole body feels imprisoned. Like it is not my own.

For once, that doesn't feel like a good thing.

My stomach lightly churns, my eyes closed, but then I feel the pressure of Bella's hand on my chest. "Good morning, gorgeous," she mumbles, lifting up. I look into her eyes and meet her kiss. Only, when she moves to slide her tongue into my mouth, there is frisson, electricity in parts of my body that are now forbidden to me, and I pull away.

For a moment, she looks hurt, her mouth frowning. Then her eyes flit down to where the sheets would normally be tented, and her expression shifts to somewhere half between amusement and apology. "Oh," she says. "Right." She kisses my cheek and slides out of the bed, leaving me there alone.

The rest of our morning proceeds much the way it usually does, except that this time Bella showers alone. Naked, she invites me to join her, but I decline, still wrapped in our sheets and in my shame, uncertain how to move. I listen to the water falling on her skin and long to be there with her, kissing and touching, washing the softness of her breasts and tasting just behind her ear.

This is not helping.

Finally, unwilling to look down at my emasculated flesh, I slide on pants and head into the kitchen to make coffee and toast. When Bella joins me, she is fully dressed, sinful in a pencil skirt and glasses that speak of every naughty librarian fantasy ever known to man. I have to look away.

The distance echoes as she pours herself a mug of coffee and slathers butter on her toast. She says nothing of any consequence, and neither do I. When it's time for her to leave, it comes as almost a relief.

"Have a good day," she says, one hand on the back of my chair as she stands over me. Before I can respond, she sets something down on the table. I look down at the little tube of lube and nearly choke on my toast. "In case anything's uncomfortable. I don't want you chafing."

My face heats. "Right."

"I love you."

There's something vulnerable to her voice – something that says this is just as hard for her as it is for me. I lift my face and my eyes, only realizing as I do that it's the first time I've met hers since she put this punishment on me.

It feels so good just to look at her, to see her looking back at me with all the love I know she has for me. With the same respect she had for me yesterday and the day before.

I touch her cheek and pull her down to kiss her more thoroughly. "I love you, too," I murmur. Because I do. So desperately, I do.

A few minutes later, the door swings closed behind her, and I am left with nothing but silence and myself. I finish up breakfast and start up my computer, checking my messages the way I always do. As I settle into the comfortable rhythm of work, I am distracted, though.

A little after nine, I give up and head to the bathroom. With the same awkwardness as the night before, I manage to relieve myself, feeling fumbling and useless as I lower my pants to my thighs and hold myself through the plastic to aim. When I am done, I strip the rest of the way down. Avoiding looking in the mirror even long enough to shave, I turn the shower on and set the heat to scalding before stepping under the spray.

So many mornings, I've taken my time like this, touching myself and remembering things my Mistress has done to me. Today, I take my time, too. I inspect and grimace and try to slide a pinky into the tiny space left by the ring. It's constricting and uncomfortable.

It's funny that Bella didn't want it to chafe. _Everything_ about it chafes.

For a few minutes, I study the little plastic lock that holds the whole assembly together. It's flimsy at best. I could snip it with a pair of scissors; in fact, I suspect that, when she chooses to take it off, that's what Bella will have to do. The bottom of it is numbered, and I suspect that's part of the security. That if a bad sub was to cut himself free, his Mistress would know that the lock had been changed.

I grimace at the very concept. As much as I want out, the idea of releasing myself is repugnant to me. I serve at my Mistress's pleasure. Or at her displeasure, as the case may be.

Clean but still feeling dirty, I turn off the water and dry myself off. I keep the towel draped around my waist to hide my body before retreating to our room to dress in the dark. Knowing I'm not going anywhere, I pick a fresh pair of pajama pants and a T-shirt, then return to my computer.

It's such a struggle to work.

That night, when Bella comes home, I'm still not really dressed, but she doesn't comment. As we go about our usual routine of dinner, I fight to remember how she sounded that morning, telling me she loves me, and I force a smile onto my face. I talk as freely as I can without breaking down and begging for forgiveness and relief.

For the first time in years, I sleep in my clothes.

…

I failed.

I failed and I can't breathe and…

And. And. And.

Over and over, I try to refocus, to get something done or to think or even to simply stop the panic in my throat. It's the second day of my punishment, and I am clawing at the walls of our home and of my mind, my lungs so tight.

And I'm a failure.

All I can see is the scene. I feel the bindings on my wrists and my body cresting. I remember how I should have _fixed_ it, how control can taste against my tongue. How good my Mistress is to me, and there's a part of me that knows I'm not worth it. I never have been.

I put my laptop down and press my spine into the corner of the couch, lift my feet onto the cushion and put my head between my knees. Absently, my fingers spin the metal of my collar, flipping it from submissive to lover, like my hands don't even know who I am today.

Like I don't know _whose_ I am.

All the tricks to try to clear my mind fail me, the panic refusing to subside. This doesn't happen often – maybe twice in the past two years. But I know what Bella would tell me to do.

Eventually, I get the nerve and reach for my phone. Hovering over her picture in my contacts, my face cracks at how beautiful she is, how wicked her private smile is. The smile that's just for me. I close my eyes and dial.

My heart pounds harder with each of the three long rings, and by the time she picks up, my fingers are gripping my collar so tightly I fear it's likely to break. That in and of itself sends my panic spiraling even higher.

"Hi, Edward." Her voice is warm. So sweet.

It should be screaming at me.

I speak the only word I have.

"Yellow," I whisper.

There's a muttered curse beneath her breath, and then she says, "One second." I hear rustling, sounds of movement and muttered voices. Then there's silence.

When she comes back on the line, her tone is one I know, and I can see her face in my mind. Domineering and beautiful and everything I crave. Everything I _need_. I need her so much right now. "Pet. Tell me what's wrong."

I feel so weak with my relief. "I'm sorry, Mistress. I'm so sorry." Then it occurs to me how much I have to apologize for. "I shouldn't be bothering you at work—"

"Of course you should. Now tell me what's wrong."

I take a long, deep breath. It's my first in hours. "I panicked, Mistress."

"Your punishment?"

"Yes, Mistress." Of course she knows. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing. Just talk to me."

My heart squeezes at how she understands what I need. Right now, it's to be forced to talk. The words tumble out, a low stream of failure and reliving the scene again and again and how constricted I feel. How angry at myself.

How out of control.

"Shh, Pet. It's okay. It's all okay."

"I know, Mistress. I—" I stop myself before I can tell her I am sorry again.

"Edward. I need you to do something for me." Thank God. "Are you listening?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"Okay, first, take a nice, deep breath." At her urging, I do just that. It feels amazing, both to fill my lungs and to follow her command. "Okay?"

"Okay."

"Good. Now, repeat after me." She pauses and then says quietly, "My Mistress loves me."

It hurts my heart to say it. It's a truth I need so badly. With a shaking breath, I echo, "My Mistress loves me."

"Mean it. My Mistress _loves_ me."

My voice is steadier this time. "My Mistress loves me."

"In her eyes, I am perfect."

I repeat it back to her, the fear inside of me easing with every word. "In her eyes, I am perfect."

"I am worthy of her discipline," she insists.

"I am worthy of her discipline."

"I am so strong."

It feels silly, but I say it. And it makes me feel better. "I am so strong."

She is quiet for a moment. When she speaks again, it is clear that I am not meant to repeat. "What color are we, Pet?"

I think about it before replying, wanting always to be truthful with her. The panic is gone, but I still feel uneasy. I know if I say yellow, she will find a way to come home to me, to take care of me. And I don't need that. Not right now. "Chartreuse," I answer honestly.

She laughs, and it eases me further. "How I love your words." She pauses, then asks, "Is there anything you _have_ to get done today?"

"Just a couple of edits on an article."

"Will you be able to focus?"

"I think so. Now."

"Good boy. Take your time with them, and when you're done, I want you to take a bath and get dressed. And not in the same pajamas you've been wearing since yesterday, understood?"

I don't know how she knows I haven't showered yet or changed. But she does. "Yes, Mistress."

"Then I want you to go to the bookstore and pick yourself out something nice."

There's a momentary flash of fear. I don't like the idea of going out like this. It seems like everyone will know.

_That you're not a man. That your cock is not your own._

"Mistress…"

"It'll be fine. Wear a long dress shirt, untucked, if it makes you feel better. Get yourself something you've been wanting to read, and then you have the rest of the afternoon to yourself. Read. Relax. If you get too restless, you can clean the apartment or something. But I'd really prefer it if you just enjoyed yourself. No pressure. Nothing you have to do."

Reading all afternoon sounds wonderful.

"Okay," I breathe.

A hint of vulnerability cracks into her voice as she asks, "You going to be okay?"

"I think so."

"Good. I'll try to sneak out early, but if you need anything—"

"I'll call."

I can hear her smile even over the phone. "Cheeky." Before she hangs up, she adds, "I love you."

"I love you too, Mistress. Thank you."

…

The whole walk to the bookstore, I keep one hand in my pocket while the other clutches the edge of my shirt, tugging it down. I feel as everyone is looking me, even though I know there's nothing to see. My jeans are not so tight as to give anything away, and the shirt is another layer of protection. Sure enough, when I glance around, there is no one paying any attention to me. My shoulders straighten, and I walk a little taller.

Once inside the store, one of the workers greets me with a smile. I'm regular enough of a customer that she knows my name, and we exchange some basic pleasantries. My voice is not as steady as usual, but I only stutter once. I cough to cover it. I don't think she notices.

Letting her go back to what she's working on, I head to the back of the store. It doesn't take me long to pick out the fantasy novel I've been eying for a while now. With the book in hand, I browse a little. I'm back into popular fiction when I notice a dark-haired woman looking at me.

I immediately check myself. Feel the cage around my cock and the heat of my collar. I glance back at her, and she winks.

"See something you like?" she asks.

"Www-what?"

Her smile is licentious, but her tone innocent as she gestures at the pile of books. "I always have such a hard time picking what I want to read next. Just wondering if you'd found something you liked."

I grasp the novel in my hand more tightly and lift it so she can see the cover. "I'm good, actually."

"Oh, I love that series." She pauses before moving closer, continuing, "It's so nice to meet a man who reads books, you know? I feel like so many men just stick to magazines and the sports section."

I cannot deny that I like how she refers to me as a man. I shrug but step back, keeping a certain distance between us. "I love books."

She smiles and holds out her hand. "My name's Bree."

"Edward." I shake her hand perfunctorily and start to pull away, but then I realize there's a piece of paper in her palm. She clasps my hand with both of hers, and my breathing quickens. There's a little arousal, but it's mostly anxiety. Only Bella touches me like this.

Pushing the slip of paper into my palm, she says, "In case you want to talk about the book. After you finish it."

She lets go, and I glance down to find a name and a phone number.

And suddenly I get it.

I laugh in spite of myself, mostly from shock. She's hitting on me. I'm worried about people realizing I'm being punished by my Mistress – that I'm less than a man – and this woman wants to date me.

I haven't felt this tall since Mistress locked me in this cage. "I'm sorry," I say, trying to keep my tone as kind as I can as I pass the number back to her. "I live with someone."

Her expression is clearly one of disappointment. "Does that mean you can't make new friends?"

"No, not at all." I think of all the friends that I have made since Bella came into my life. But none of them are attractive, single brunettes who've tried to pick me up. "But still. Thank you. I just wouldn't feel comfortable."

Her eyes look me up and down. "Pity."

"Sorry."

After she takes the piece of paper back from me, I nod at her and walk away. I pay for my purchase and head back home, smiling all the way.

It's not the first time someone's flirted with me in the past two years. Honestly, more women have probably approached me since Bella became my lover than in all the years before. I've never once been tempted to stray, but it's a nice thing to be wanted. It's a nice thing, indeed.

Back at home, I do just as Bella ordered, sinking into our couch and into another world full of magic and intrigue. On some level, it reminds me of my life before her, when I spent so much time escaping from my bleak reality. In a stark contrast with my panic of the morning, my collar and the state of my cock are both reminders that my life has changed. That I am loved. And, occasionally, owned.

True to her word, Bella makes it home about an hour earlier than usual, and as always I'm delighted to see her. At the sound of the key in the lock, I mark my place in my book and look up. There's a tension to her body and a tightness around her eyes at first, but then her gaze meets mine and she sees my smile. Her whole posture melts, and she comes to meet me on the couch, where I wrap her up in my arms and place kisses in her hair.

"You seem…" she says.

"Better. Much, much better."

"I'm so glad."

"Sorry to have worried you. I was just…having a moment."

She pulls back and presses her lips to mine. "Then I'm glad you called."

"Me, too." I squeeze her lightly. "You always know exactly what to say."

"Not always." Extracting herself from my embrace, she sits beside me and intertwines our hands, then gestures at the book. "So how did your errand go?"

"Good, actually." I can't help the way the corner of my lip turns up at the memory.

Her eyes narrow, and there's suspicion to her tone. "What aren't you telling me?"

My smile becomes a full-on smirk. "I got hit on at the bookstore."

"Of course you did. You look fucking hot."

It doesn't matter how many times she tells me this. I'll never entirely believe it. "If you say so."

"I do. Adamantly and repeatedly."

I won't argue. Instead, I lean in to kiss her more thoroughly, only stopping when the pressure starts to build. I hum and touch her face and pull away, regretting that I have to and ruing the circumstances that keep me from making love to her right now. "So what do you want to do tonight, since you don't have to take care of a b-basketcase, after all?"

"Don't talk about my Edward that way," she says. She's always saying things like that. Without skipping a beat, she suggests, "How do you feel about going out? Dinner? Maybe a couple drinks."

I see now why she wanted me to go out on my own this afternoon. A little trial run to see if I'm all right being out in public this way. I drag my hand through my hair and nod. "Sure."

She stops me for a second before I can get up. "If you _had_ needed me tonight, if you'd wanted to stay in or the punishment had been too much, that would have been fine. You know that, right?"

My heart tightens. "I know."

"Okay." Her eyes search mine, her hand coming up to rest against my chest. "I know I'm pushing you with this. I want to make sure _you_ know you're pushing you, too, okay? That it's hard, and it's not weakness on your part that it feels hard."

I try to imagine a world in which I could love her more. I kiss her mouth and murmur, "I know." And then, because I love her playful just as much as I love her insightful and serious, I add, grinning, "Though, really, I thought the problem was that I _can't_ get hard."

At that, she slaps me and lets me stand up.

Still talking, albeit about more mundane things, I follow her into the bedroom and put myself through the bittersweet torture of watching her change. Before long, we're ready to go. We grab an early dinner at a Thai place around the corner and then head to our usual bar, where we get in a round before any of our other friends show up.

In spite of my fears, none of them seem to notice anything different about me or about Bella's and my dynamic. I know I'm a little clingy, choosing to stay by her side instead of socializing by myself. She doesn't begrudge me the comfort of her presence or of her hand in mine, and bit by bit I relax, almost forgetting my predicament.

Only it's impossible to forget once we get home.

Half-drunk and wanting after two days without contact, the minute we make it through the door, I have her pushed up against it, my hand on her ass and my tongue in her mouth. It's uncomfortable, my cock hot and swollen and constrained, but I don't care. I want sex, but I need touch even more. I need her.

So she's the first to pull away. It doesn't hurt my pride that it's with a growl of frustration. "Three _days_?" she groans. "What was I thinking?"

I shake my head and kiss her again, pressing one palm to the place between her hip and her sex so there's no mistake. "I'm the one who messed up. Not you. You don't have to suffer." She groans and I move to suck the skin beside her ear. "I'd love to put my mouth on you."

I know it'll hurt, but I don't care.

Tomorrow. I'll get my relief tomorrow.

She hesitates and lets me grind the heel of my hand against her pubic bone, but then she sighs and tugs at my wrist. "No. If you can bear it, then I can, too."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure." She pushes off of the wall and squirms out from underneath my arm. As she walks toward the bedroom, she looks back over her shoulder, her eyes all sex and smolder. "Just make sure you get plenty of sleep tonight. Because tomorrow I am going to take you for _hours._"

At her words, I ache.

But as I follow her, I cannot help but smile.

…

I wake on the third and final day feeling ready to burst, my skin sensitive and my sac heavy. Declining to shower with Bella, I sit in bed with the sheet draped over my hips, and when she comes in to change, I watch her, feeling perverted and territorial and wanting all at once. She drops the towel and puts on a garter belt and stockings, the straps framing her bare sex, and I know she's thinking the same things I am. Before she can dress any further, I beckon her over to me and kiss her deeply, letting my hands wander.

"I can't wait for tonight," she says, her voice deep and breathy.

I groan and push her away. "Me, neither."

The day is a whole new kind of torture, and as I while the hours away, my mind drifts aimlessly, to dirty things, to wonderful things. I think of sex and touching and of what it will feel like when she gives my body back to me. I imagine a hundred million ways we could make love and how many times she'll let me come. Right now, it feels like I could go off at anything. Like I could never stop.

I fantasize about her mouth and how it feels when the head slides just inside her throat, about the space between her breasts, hot sliding. I think about thrusting into her pussy and her ass and her hands. I want them all. Everything.

By five, I'm ready to melt through my skin, my mind already sinking into the place where I am hers and hers alone. Her Pet. Her plaything. So proud to be the one she chose to better through her discipline. And I'm so ready for the punishment to be over - so ready for the chance to prove myself again. To please and to be pleased by her.

Half an hour later, I hear her at the door, and I am up out of my seat before she can pull her keys out of the lock. As she closes the door, I fall to my knees at her feet, my collar already off. I hold it up in the palm of my hand and look up at her with all the love and submission I have in my heart, begging for her to let me make this right.

"Don't worry, Pet. I'll take care of you."

My mind fuzzes around the edges at the feeling of her fingers in my hair, her nails scratching at my scalp in a gesture that is so comforting, so _home_.

I wonder how she'll make me come. If she'll suck my cock or jerk me off or if she'll ride me.

But at that last thought, I shudder in spite of myself. I know I'll never last. And I can't stand to disappoint her again.

She takes the collar from my hand and wraps it back around my neck, her initial facing out, but I stop her with a hand around her wrist. She looks down at me in surprise.

"Just-" I start. "Before you collar me. You need to know. I can't wait. I can't. It's been so hard, and if you tease me at all, or if you make me wear it for another minute, I'll..."

I'll safeword. I know I will.

"Shh, Pet." She strokes my face and falls to her knees, too. "I know. I know what you need."

Thank God.

I release her wrist and drop my hands down by my sides, lowering my gaze and my defenses as I give her my body. My submission.

She takes them both.

As she secures the leather strands around my neck, a shiver rushes through my body, and everything goes soft. With a finger at my jaw, she tilts my head and meets my lips with kiss full of promise and love. "Playroom," she murmurs. "Naked."

She stands, leaving me there on my knees, and walks away. Her feet aren't entirely steady. I follow her command and rise, pushing through the door of that wonderful room where I'm free to be exactly who and what I am. I strip quickly, hands shaking with anticipation and my skin tingling everywhere my hands brush over it.

For the first time all week, I look at the sad, captive curl of flesh between my legs with something other than disgust. I look at it with hope and need.

I've just finished folding my clothes when she walks in, holding the blunt-tipped scissors from her knitting bag and a wet washcloth. Immediately, she kneels before me, and I have to close my eyes against both the inequity and the eroticism of the pose. I hate being above her when I'm like this, but there is nothing about her that doesn't speak of being in control.

"Stay still, Pet."

With one decisive cut, she opens the lock, and I exhale in a rush, babbling. "Thank you. Thank you, Mistress. I'm so sorry to have disappointed you-"

She hushes me. "You're forgiven."

Her hands fumble slightly as she pulls apart the interlocking pieces of the contraption. The instant I'm free, I feel it in every inch of my body, a flow of life in my fingers and my toes, like I'm glowing. Even the rough friction of the washcloth on sensitive skin is not enough to keep me from getting hard.

"You did so well, Pet. So well." Her eyes meet mine as she cleans me. "You can come as many times as you want tonight. Whenever you want."

"Thank you," I whisper, my cock steel inside her hands.

"Tell me what you want."

I don't hesitate at all. "Mistress, please. Please suck me."

The last syllable gets lost inside a hiss as she swallows me whole. Warm and wet all around me, her mouth is heaven, and I know I won't last. I don't even try.

"God, Mistress. So good. That feels so good."

She hasn't told me not to, so I tangle my fingers in her hair, just to feel those strands slipping as she moves, bobbing, engulfing.

"I'm close..."

When I moan, she moves her head and pumps me, spit-slick sliding, with her hand. Within three strokes I clench my fist and my eyes. My come pours out of me in the kind of rush I feel with my entire body, like she's touching me everywhere.

Coming down to earth a minute later, I feel like myself again, my head clear.

"Thank you, Mistress. Thank you so, so much."

Then I see her spattered in my come, and my brain goes foggy once more.

She smiles and wipes away the stripes of white from her chest and hand, leaving only one slick trail between her breasts. This she scoops up with her finger, and then she rises to stand before me.

"Open."

I let her finger into my mouth and suck at it, tasting bitter come and sex.

But there's none of the bitterness of the last time. None of the shame of coming without permission.

"Taste good?"

I release her finger with a wet pop. "Not as good as you."

"Mmmm," she hums. "Good answer." She takes my hand to the zipper at the side of her skirt, and at her encouragement I pull it down. The fabric slides away to reveal her long legs and the lingerie I love. She never did put on panties, and the possessive part of me is aroused and incensed, thinking of her at the office all day, crossing and uncrossing her legs, knowing anyone could catch a glimpse of her perfect pussy.

But she comes home to me. She wears stockings and garters for me.

I slide a finger through the lips of her sex and run my nose down her cheek. "May I kiss you, Mistress?"

"Yes."

I tease her lips with mine and find her clit with my fingers. "Here?"

"Fuck, yes."

She pulls me with her back to the bed in the corner of the room, where she sits, legs spread, wet and glistening. "Well, Pet?"

I groan, "Mistress," and dive in with tongue and lips and teeth, my fingers in her, stroking just the way I know she likes. Unlike me, she has no problem guiding me, and her hand is hard on the back of my head as she tells me what to do.

"Harder. Oh, yes. Suck..."

I pull her clit between my teeth and push another finger inside, curling up, and within minutes her hand tightens in my hair, her legs tense and her heel a hard pressure against my spine.

"Yes, Pet. Yes. Make me-"

I groan against her pussy, my cock already hard again as she comes apart against my mouth, the spasms around my fingers so arousing. I want them around me. I want inside.

She wants it just the same. "Oh, fuck me, Pet. Fuck me."

"How?"

"Just like this." She tugs on my hair and grabs my shoulder, pulling me up the bed until my hips are cradled by her thighs.

She's still coming when I slide inside. I feel each aftershock like a pulse, and I bury my face against her neck, overwhelmed with how good it feels to come back home like this. To make love with my Mistress. I pant her name and thrust my hips, eating up her sounds of pleasure as I fill her again and again.

Her fingernails dig in hard, deep crescents of welcome pain at my shoulder and hip. With her hands, she sets the pace, and with her teeth at my neck she marks me. Her body has no sooner relaxed from the orgasm I gave her with my tongue than she is tensing again. One hand slides between our bodies, and I redouble my efforts at the sensation of fingertips rubbing circles on her clit.

Everything feels _good._

Too good.

Just as the pleasure starts to crest, I pause, surprised by the pressure of anxiety inside my chest, a frisson of fear, and my rhythm falters as I try to remember a single sonnet.

I need her to come.

"Please, Mistress," I beg as my mind goes blank. It's so familiar, so similar to the moment I've relived for three long days.

And pleasure stinks of failure.

"Come, baby," she murmurs, but I shake my head. Not yet. Not yet.

I tell myself this even as her heels dig into my ass, driving me to keep pushing into her, and I'm trying so hard to keep it in.

"Give in," she whispers.

"No. Please."

But then she grasps my hair and yanks my head from her throat, forcing my eyes to meet hers, and they are fire. "I love you, Pet. Come."

With that, I'm undone.

Sliding in frantic, uneven thrusts, I let the pleasure build, refusing to let the release taste bitter in my mouth. I've had enough of disappointment and of anger with myself. And my Mistress wants me to come.

She feels my renewed effort and throws her head back, rubbing harder between us. As I shoot the first hot jets of come inside of her, she moves to grab my neck and calls my name.

Coming. She's coming.

My whole body explodes as she pulses around me. It's euphoric and perfect, and I'm laughing as I'm falling forward, stilling my hips against hers and digging my face into the mattress, delirious with love and triumph.

For a few hot, quiet moments, Mistress and I lie there just like that. And in that instant - that one brief, brilliant instant - everything is right, all my mistakes forgiven. All I have to do is look at her to know it's true.

To know, flawed as I am, that I am perfect in her eyes.

And I dare to hope that maybe, just maybe, I can live up to that perception.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

* * *

**A/N**: Can he? (Duh.) We'll find out in the next out-take, "Her Mistake," which I'll be posting ... whenever I write it.

Thanks for reading.


	6. Her Mistake

This outtake happens two weeks after the previous one ("My Mistake"). You'll definitely want to read it first, if you haven't already. As a quick reminder, Mistress got her Pet a cock cage. And he didn't entirely know what to do about it.

Thanks to MsKathy for beta'ing, and thanks to some helpful readers who informed me of some of the, ahem, potential downfalls of the particular model of cage Mistress chose to get her Pet. (Let me tell you, that was an interesting thing to google. But it was also inspiring ;) )

As always, two facts are lamentable but true: Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight, and I have no personal experience with BDSM.

* * *

**Our Lives Unbound Out-take: Her Mistake**

"Scotch on the rocks?"

I've scarcely hung my jacket on the back of my barstool before the bartender is there, reaching for a highball glass and asking if I'd like my usual. I smile and nod. "You know it."

As I take my seat, I hear the jangling of the bells above the door and crane my head to see Jasper striding in. He spots me immediately and waves. I turn back toward the bartender, but he's already smiling. "And a Sam Adams, I'm guessing?"

I laugh and agree. While he's pouring our drinks, I stand and hold my arm out to Jasper, pulling him in for a quick two-pats-on-the-back sort of man-hug.

It's our standing arrangement. Every Wednesday night, we meet here at the bar for drinks and conversation. Sometimes we watch whatever game is on, and sometimes we retreat to a booth to talk about something more important. Sometimes we hardly have to talk about anything at all.

Outside of spending time with Bella, it's the best part of my week.

Drinks in hand, we settle into our seats and make small talk about our work, our friends. Our partners.

"So how's Bella?"

"She's…" I pause, staring at my glass and frowning. It's a hesitation that encapsulates the worry that's been haunting me for weeks now. Two weeks.

The two weeks since she punished me.

The time has passed, but it feels as if it's been standing still. I can still feel the twinge of regret, the nip of plastic against my dick. The pinch of guilt. The fear.

Every time I make love to her, be it as her boyfriend or her Pet, it is with a hint of fear.

"Edward?"

I put my glass down but keep staring into space. "She's fine. But we're…" I don't know how to explain it, but I find I want to talk about it. I want it out of my head. "We've been having some trouble."

"Really?" Jasper's concern is real, and I can tell I have his full attention. "You guys have been so solid."

We have been. Ever since we made the leap to live together, things have been smooth. Almost shockingly so. The only issues we have had have been related to my lifetime of bachelorhood and her history of living with girls. There's been friction around little things, like cleaning schedules and how we spend our time when one or the other of us wants to be alone. But nothing between _us._ Nothing until now.

"It'sssss…" I start, then hesitate again, deciding how to phrase this. While Jasper knows about our sex life, it's not something I feel comfortable talking about too plainly, so I couch my fears in general terms. "It's probably nothing. I just—I sc-screwed up a couple weeks ago."

"Ouch. Something big?"

"Nothing t-too major. She forgave me for it three days later." Three long, painful days. "It's mmmme, really. I can't – I can't lllet it go, you know? And now I'm wwalking on eggshells all the time, afraid I'll do it again."

I chance a glance at Jasper to find him looking pensive, the corners of his mouth twisted down. As he usually does, he turns the issue around on me. "Have you talked to her about it?"

"Ad nauseum." We really have. Over and over again, we've talked about limits and punishments and what I can and cannot handle. But as always, the problem isn't her. "I just… I d-don't know how to get beyond it, you know?"

He looks at me pointedly. "Have you told her _that_?"

"Maybe not in so many words…"

"Then you should. Soon. When things like this fester, they can turn into real issues."

"I know." My ribs twist with the ache that always comes with thoughts like this.

Thoughts like how we may not be able to work past it.

I drop my head into my hands and breathe out a shaky exhale. "I d-don't know what I'd do. If I lost her. She's…"

"Everything," he offers quietly.

I drop my hands to cover just my mouth and nod. "She's everything."

"Then make sure she knows that."

I do. With everything I am, I do. Every day.

And yet…

Jasper is still talking as my mind drifts to the ways we've settled in over the years, becoming comfortable with each other and our roles, both in our play and in our lives. And while I worship her every moment, I can't remember the last time I did something for her just because.

"Edward? Are you listening?"

I shake my head and refocus on him. "Sorry. I got d-distracted. You're right. I need to do a better job. Showing her what she means to me."

He smiles and pats my shoulder. "Good. But there's more to it than that."

My heart sinks. "There is?"

"For you? Yes." His expression serious, he says, slowly and deliberately, "It's not easy to forgive yourself. It takes conscious effort. It takes _choosing_ to let it go, every time the guilt starts to nag at you. Every time."

My stomach does a little flip. "I know."

We sit in silence for a minute while we each digest what we have said. He's right, of course, and as I think about the idea of letting go, I have another flash of the moment when I earned my punishment. When I couldn't control myself.

The anxiety that comes with the guilt is a dancing heat against my skin. It makes my chest tight.

But I breathe through it. I take a sip of my scotch. And the best I can, I push the guilt away. It's out of sight. Out of mind.

But I still know that it's there.

…

On the way home, I stop by the all-night grocer's on a whim. The floral department is small, but it's all I'll be able to find at ten o'clock. In and amongst the sad bunches of roses and carnations, I spy a little bundle of soft-budded purple irises, their blooms just about ready to burst open.

They just need time.

Patience.

I pay for them, feeling lighter than I have in days, and head home with a spring in my step. Jasper's words have opened something in my mind, and as I put my key into the lock of Bella's and my home, I let that sensation wash over me the way I did right after I moved in.

It's Bella's and my home. _Our_ home.

Ours.

I push the door open and poke my head around the corner. The living room and kitchen are empty, but the light over the stove is on, so she must be home. Probably already in bed. That thought alone has my body stirring, an eagerness to make love to her that I haven't been able to summon for weeks now. I grasp the flowers in my hand more tightly and shut the door behind me with care. Wanting to surprise her, I move silently through the apartment, toeing off my shoes and hanging up my jacket, my smile so wide.

But then, as I move into the hallway, I hear a voice. _Voices._

My heart stops. _I_ stop. For a moment, everything does.

There's a light on in the playroom, the door closed but for a crack, and for an instant I fear the worst. The absolute worst.

_My Mistress loves me. My _Bella_ loves me._

Scarcely breathing, I move to the door and peer inside, relief flooding me to find it's only her. Just her.

"I just don't know what to do!" she says, throwing her hands up in the air. She's facing away from me, staring into the closet where we keep our more interesting toys.

The digital quality of the reply is obvious now that I'm closer, and I gulp in a deep inhale as I recognize her phone, sitting on the table beside her, screen on. Speaker phone. "Slow down. Tell me everything."

It only takes a few words for me to recognize the voice as Lee's. He and Bella have remained good friends over the years, and he's been something of a mentor to her. He's who she goes to when she isn't sure about something or when she needs to talk things through. I've never been privy to their conversations. I shouldn't be privy to this one now.

Bella sighs loudly and scrubs her face with her hand. "I've told you everything already. He's just… he's not getting over it. At all. In the playroom, he acts like he's afraid of me, and even outside of it, he's so _nervous_. It's like back when we first started dating all over again, only worse. At least back then he wanted to have sex with me."

My cock, already deflated, shrinks into my body at her words.

"It's only been a couple weeks."

"Did you just hear yourself? A couple _weeks_? For Edward, that might as well be a year. He usually wants to do it every day, practically."

"Wait," Lee says. "Are you telling me you haven't had sex at all?"

We have. Of course we have.

Bella groans in frustration. "Yes, but only maybe twice outside the playroom, and it's me initiating. And when we did, he… he wouldn't look at me, Lee. He kept his eyes shut the whole time. And he won't… he won't finish inside me."

It's not true. In the playroom I did.

But then I remember how I've stopped myself when we've been just ourselves. I've opted to go down on her. Asked her to suck me. Once I pulled out when it got too much and stroked myself to come across her breasts.

I pretended it was just because I thought that it was sexy. And it was. But it was more. And she knows it.

"Have you talked about this with him?"

"Yeah, but he says everything is fine. I just don't know what to do. I'm so worried he won't get past it, and..."

She sounds choked up as she trails off, and my own throat gets tight. I want to go to her. To make this right.

But I don't know how.

Lee pauses for a moment and then asks, "Do you want my honest opinion?"

"Why else would I be calling you?"

He still hesitates. "Really, Bella, I'm not sure what you expected. You take a man with a history of issues with intimacy, one who has, under duress, confessed to having struggled with premature ejaculation in the past. One who wouldn't even get on top of you until you forced him to as his dominant. One who uses sex not just as pleasure but as comfort and validation of his manliness. And then when he comes without permission, you take his cock away from him, a punishment he's told you he isn't comfortable with. How exactly did you think this would go?"

"I—I—"

I can't listen to any more. With Lee's dissection of my flaws still ringing in my ears, I back away, almost forgetting the flowers in my hand until the plastic wrapped around them crinkles. My heart aching, I look at that gesture, at that symbol of what I need.

I place them on the floor beside the playroom door. And then I retreat into our room.

There, I strip down to just my boxers and a T-shirt and climb into the bed. In the dimness, I draw my legs up to my chest, curling in on myself and hugging my knees. The sounds of Bella's conversation drift in through the walls, but I'm not listening. All I hear is her telling Lee what's wrong with me. All I see is how she looked at me when she put the cage on me.

After what feels like an eternity, the cadence of the voices in the other room changes, bringing me back to myself in time to hear them saying their goodbyes. There's a minute of silence during which I want to be even smaller, but there's no more space to huddle into. Finally, a shaft of light opens out into the hall. Bella's footfalls cease, and everything goes still.

My breath. My heart.

Plastic crinkles, and then she calls my name. "Edward?"

I open my mouth, but on the first try, no sound comes out. I clear my throat and find my voice, but it sounds as raw as I feel. "In here."

The light in the playroom goes dark, and the floorboard creak as she approaches. She flips the lights on and I wince. It's just as well. I can't look at her anyway.

She makes no movement to approach, and the distance yawns, a tangible, aching thing.

"How long have you been here?"

Her voice is frighteningly neutral, like she's holding so much back.

I know she is. There all kinds of things she's been keeping to herself these weeks. Things she only tells her friend. Things about me.

"A little while." I'm still staring at her pillow, my eyes adjusted to the brightness now but still unable to really see.

"How much did you hear?"

"En-nnnough."

"Oh, baby…"

It hurts to hear her speak that way, to hear the tenderness seeping through the cracks. And to know it might not be enough.

Something breaks inside me and I press my forehead to my knees. My inhale is ragged, the sound of it pained.

"I'm sorry."

I'm sorry for so many things.

"Edward, no…"

My shoulders shake.

I can't lose her. I can't.

But what if I can't get over this?

She's on the bed beside me before my thoughts can spiral any further, her touch a heat that sears so deeply into me, rattling everything.

"Edward?"

I can't not look at her.

She's on her knees, her lip between her teeth, brows furrowed with a worry that echoes my own, her hand on my shoulder. The flowers lie on the mattress near her thigh. She moves her fingers up to stroke my cheek, and some of the tightness eases until I can breathe again. "Edward, baby, no. I'm sorry. I–"

I cut her off, shaking my head, only I don't even know what I'm saying no to. Her apology. Her kindness. I reach my hand up to cover hers and bring it to my mouth, kissing each knuckle gently, begging for time with my touch. Finally, I clasp her hand in mine and drop them both to the mattress between us, loosening my posture. I lean back against the headboard and let my legs stretch out.

Staring into those wide, brown eyes, I reach into the center of my fear and my need. "I love you. So much."

"And I love you."

"I nnneed things to be ok-kay between us."

She only hesitates for a second, but the pause is louder than any words. "I want that, too."

"B-but?"

"No but." Her lips are tightly pressed together, her head shaking almost imperceptibly as she squeezes my hand. "I want that."

I press. "_But_…"

She gazes at me with an intensity that makes me think she can see right through. "But we can't just ignore it. We can't just _make_ things be better without fixing them."

"I know." I focus my eyes on the sight of our hands, joined between our bodies.

"Talk to me?"

There's so much to tell, but none of it is really new. Jasper's advice rings in my head, reminding me of the important things. The things I haven't given weight to.

Trying to relax, I play with her fingers and stare at our skin against the sheets. "You're the mmmmost important thing in the world to me. You know that, right?"

"Yeah." The word comes out on an exhale, a deep gust of breath. It's the kind of thing that isn't always easy for her to admit. "I know."

"I don't show you that enough."

Her laughter cuts the tension in the air. "Of course you do. Every day." The plastic wrap around the flowers crinkles as she touches it. "You don't have to give me flowers to show me that."

"I know." I shrug, feeling lighter. At least I haven't screwed that up. "But I wanted to."

"And I love them." She leans in to press a kiss against my cheek. Her lips are soft and perfect, burning through me and reminding me that, beneath it all, we are okay. We will be. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. I just… I need you to know." As she pulls back, I meet her eyes. "I'll do anything. I'll be…b-better."

Her eyes go liquid, the dark circles of them softening as her lip quivers. "No. No. You don't have to. You're perfect. I'm the one who…" She stops and takes a deep breath, pulling her hand back from mine to scrub it over her face. "I made a mistake."

I shake my head again, this time knowing exactly what I'm protesting. "I'm the one who—"

"No. Me." She puts her hand against my cheek, holding my face and keeping my gaze on her. "I'm the one who made a mistake."

She believes it, too.

And maybe she did. She pushed me, and maybe it was too far.

I wish I wasn't so weak.

My chest shivers, but I force the corner of my lips to smile. "We both made mistakes." I grab her hand again, holding it in mine. "And we'll make them right."

I love saying the word 'we'.

"I'm so sorry."

"So am I." I press a finger to her lips, even though it makes my heart pang to silence her, closing her mouth when I see her about to argue. While wry, my smile is genuine. "I'm the one who can't let it go. I'm trying, though."

I am. Starting tonight, I really, truly am.

With that thought in mind, Jasper's words about choosing to forgive myself at the forefront of my mind, I lean in and kiss her mouth, soft and wet and slow. It's the kind of kiss that has always melted me, arousing me and filling me, and when I press my tongue against her lips, she lets me in.

Pushing back the anxiety and the little rush of shame, I press her back into the bed, hovering over her and letting myself go flush against her body. She's all softness and receptiveness, her fingertips a miracle against my skin and in my hair. She parts her thighs and pulls me closer, until the nascent line of my erection is cradled at her sex. I push against her, and when the surge of pleasure comes, I let it roll through me.

I make it mine, and I let it be hers.

Our apologies are the movements of our hands and bodies, the warmth of her flesh and the softness of her breasts. I undress her slowly, and when she's naked, I only linger for a moment at her pussy, a few loving licks at slick, pink flesh before I am climbing back up the length of her. She pulls my shirt over my head and shoves my boxers down.

The feeling of her, wet and hot against the long, bare line of me is a revelation, and I don't know how I've denied myself this for so long. I slide along the valley of her sex, dragging the underside against her clit in long strokes, breathing her air as we kiss. Her mouth is as soft and supple as the rest of her body is, her little sounds of pleasure a balm for my confidence and for my soul.

She loves me. She loves _me_.

It's clear in every touch and in every press of lips to lips. It's clear in the way she lies back, trusting and letting me do this my way.

It's not in her nature and it's not in mine.

But right now, we both need me to be in control.

At long last, I let the head of my cock slide down her slit until it's pressed against her opening. I gaze into her eyes. And then I push forward.

"_Bella_." Her name is a choking exhale, my eyes widening and her body so accepting, so wet and warm around my flesh. Her hands come to my shoulder and my face, her legs wrapping around my waist, and I feel like I'm home.

Nothing's ever felt as good as this.

Because, if I let it, every time's the best time.

I'm going to let it.

Slipping a hand between us, I rub her as I pull back and push inside, a rhythmic motion of hips and hips. She rises to meet me, keeps her gaze trained on mine and her palms on me, guiding.

It's a reconnection and a test, but as the pleasure begins to rise, I know that I'm going to pass it. I delay, working hard to make her find her climax first, but it's because I love her. Because I love it when she comes around me.

Not because I'm worried she'll think less of me.

"Let go, baby."

I shudder and twitch inside the grip of her body. She needs me to come as badly as I do.

"God, Bella, I'm—"

It's surge and a wave, a rush of everything I am and everything I need. It's comfort and love. And it's her.

And it's me.

When I let loose the first hot pulse, it doesn't feel like I'm emptying. I'm filling. Filling up with everything she's giving me.

The waves of my climax crash over me, and I give them all to her, releasing deep inside her body and clasping her so tightly. Her hands are in my hair, her lips at my throat as I collapse over her, spent and okay.

I'm okay. And she loves me this way.

Still, as soon as the hardest of the aftershocks have passed, I withdraw from inside her and kiss her lips and kiss her chin. I drag my mouth all the way down the sweat-slicked landscape of her body, over breasts and navel and hip to the center of her sex. She's leaking with me, but I don't care. I press my fingers into her and seal my lips over her clit. I suck and tongue, and when she comes, I feel it as intensely as I did the tensing of my own body. It seems to go on forever, and every squeezing of her sex around my fingers only serves to warm me.

When her thighs relax around my ears, I pull my mouth from her pussy and look up at her, trying to show her with my gaze how I adore her. Her face is all softness and a love that's a match for my own.

I rest my cheek against her abdomen and slide my hand to the top of her thigh. She exhales long and low and slips her fingers through my hair. We hold each other.

And I still want to be better for her.

But even if I'm not, I know it.

I know that somehow, someway, we are going to be all right.

…

That Friday, I'm in the playroom, readying it for our weekend play. I clean the surfaces she takes me on, dust the rows of implements hidden in the closet, and then I open our box of toys.

I'm not looking for it, but I stumble on it all the same.

The sight of the clear plastic tube and ring and locks makes my stomach churn, twisting with revulsion. Shame. Still, I refuse to look away.

I pick the cock cage up and turn it over in my hands. It's just an object, but it's become so much more in my brain – a symbol, a locus for all the things that are bothering me. For all the things that scare me.

Even after all this time, I'm still afraid of not being enough for her. Of disappointing her. Of having control over my body taken from me this way.

And I'm struck with a sudden urge.

I have to choose to forgive myself. And I have to _choose_ not to be afraid.

I stare at the cage and feel its weight in my palm. My usual arousal born of being in this room has long since faded, leaving me soft inside my jeans. I could slip this on, and it wouldn't hurt my body. Just my pride.

It would hurt my Mistress, too.

I wrap it up in a cloth and slip it in my pocket. As I move around the room, finishing my tasks, it's a weight at my side.

And I don't want to be weighed down by it anymore.

Bella returns home from work that night to find me in the kitchen, heating leftovers. I'm quieter than usual, but she has plenty to say, so it's okay. As we eat, the object in my pocket is less a weight and more a flame. I'm too hot, my leg bouncing up and down, words all hanging in my throat, unspoken.

"Edward."

I look up into warm brown eyes, full of questions. And worry.

"Did you hear anything I said just now?"

It takes me a second to realize I haven't.

At my lack of response, she swipes her palm across her brow, then points to me. "Talk. Now."

Like the early days of relationship, I have no words. Only a yearning and a need, a desire so strong for connection, love and touch.

Unable to look at her, I pull the cage out of my pocket and unwrap it. I place it atop the cloth on the table before her like an offering. But I'm offering her so much more.

I'm asking for so much more.

"Edward…"

"I wwwww—" I stop. Pause and work around the block. "I think I should wwwear it."

There's objection in every inch of her. "We talked about this. I'm never making you—"

"You're not making me. I wwww—I want to."

She puts her hand on the side of my face and forces my gaze up. I look into eyes that are loving and kind.

"Why?"

I swallow hard and finger the edge of the cage, my knee still bouncing. I stare at the freckle at the side of her nose. "B-because I should be able to."

"Because you think _I_ think you should be able to? Because it doesn't matter to me. You know that."

Taking her hand in mine, I lower it to the table, curling my fingers around her palm. "I know. That's not what this is ab-b-bout."

"Then what is it about?"

I meet her eyes of my own free will. God, they're beautiful. They fill me with the strength I need. Always.

I squeeze her hand and bring it up to kiss the knuckles one by one. "It's about p-proving something to myself."

Her stare is the one that sees right through me, and it lasts forever. She must see what she needs to. Scooting her chair forward so our knees touch, she pulls her hand back, her chin high. Looking like my Mistress, for all that I am still playing the role of myself.

She narrows her eyes. "Tell me exactly what you have in mind."

…

I kneel before her on the hardwood floor, naked and needy, keyed up and thrumming with a nervous excitement I haven't felt since the beginning. She places the metal of my collar on my skin with her initial facing out, and I exhale hard. There's serenity here, in this place where she loves me and takes me. This place in our home and this place in my mind. I am in my body. And I am hers.

"Happy about something, Pet?"

"Only the chance to serve you, Mistress."

She runs her fingers through my hair, scratching my scalp. I feel like her dog and like her pet, and I soak up her affection like a balm.

"That's what I like to hear," she says, walking around me. Inspecting. Her hand comes to my chin and tugs it up, commanding me to look at her. Her eyes are cool and calculating, her smile half amusement and half a sort of loving disdain. It sends shivers up and down my spine. "Now. There was something you wanted from me."

The cock cage rests behind her on a table, the lube beside it. My dignity inside it, twisted up with the rest of my feelings about my sexual identity. About myself.

She pinches my chin to refocus my eyes from that piece of plastic back to her. Arches an eyebrow expectantly.

My throat is tight, but my tongue is loose. Freed. "I want you to own me."

"Uh-uh-uh." She clucks her tongue and tsk's. "Tell me _exactly _what you want."

My breathing is too fast, my pulse pounding. But still I ask. "Please. Please take my cock from me."

Her smile grows crueler and more beautiful. "With pleasure. But you're going to let me use it first. The cage can be your reward."

The very idea of it takes my breath away. Her punishment of weeks ago is what she'll give to me for being good. For serving her and letting her use me. Her control of my body is a _gift_.

And she gives it to me.

My head is a humming, buzzing thing, the whole world falling away to the rhythm of discipline and command. I place myself in postures, moan and thank her as she spanks me for my pleasure and for hers. Lie down on my back on a satin-covered bed.

Everything is glowing as she straddles me. Squeezes my balls to the point of pain and makes it so, so good.

Achingly slowly, she lowers down.

Words fall from my lips, insane babbling about how I love it when she takes me. My skin is on fire, the heat of her sex deep and cleansing as it envelops me. There is no worry of coming too soon. Of disappointment or of inadequacy.

Over and over again, she slides along me. I'm hard inside her, but I'm nothing. A cock. A toy.

And I'm not the only one.

From beneath a pillow, she procures a little vibrator, and my groans grow all the louder at the feel of buzzing at the base of my cock. She holds the bulb of metal to her clit as she rides me.

"Such.." she pants, "…good…_toys._"

I close my eyes against the pleasure. Against the intensity of everything I feel when I'm inside of her this way.

"Come, Pet." Somehow her mouth is at my ear, her breath a lick of flame along my skin. "Come inside me."

She pulses, and I scream, emptying. Before the last stream leaves me, before I can re-surface from the ecstasy, she's pulling off of me, and I gasp, a wordless protest as she crawls her way along my body. Plants her knees to either side of my head.

She puts her pussy to my face.

"Drink me."

I lick it all. Her wet flesh and my release.

And it tastes like love and wanting.

Her voice is the lowest whisper and the sweetest caress. Fingers in my hair, she breathes, "That's my good boy. That's my good, good boy."

And I'm flying. Full.

Worthy.

…

"Three days, Pet." My Mistress slides the plastic tube around the now-soft flesh between my legs, locking together the interconnecting parts. As she works, she explains the terms we agreed upon already, but the words are different. The framing. "I'll let you wear this for three days. You've earned that much for serving me so well."

I'm breathing fast, still riding high. "Thank you, Mistress."

"Each night, I'll give you the chance to beg to come." It's the one thing I wanted this time. If it's voluntary to live confined like this, I need to know I have a choice. She looks up at me with wicked eyes and heated gaze. "But I'll reward you if you don't."

"I like rewards."

"I know you do, Pet."

She rewards me sometimes with her ass. With her mouth and hours of edging toward release. With the chance to taste her until she's shaking.

Stepping back, she invites me to stand. I do so with my head held as high as I can. It's still frightening, being under her control this way, but it's different this time. We're pushing. Together.

And instead of failing, I'm rising.

Instead of shame, this is my opportunity for pride.

…

The following afternoon, she takes my collar off. Naked but for the cage, I pull her with me to the bath. We slip beneath the water as one, and just like the last time we bathed this way, there's a silence around us. It isn't threatening, though. It doesn't fester. Connected in a way we haven't been in weeks, we wash each other of our roles. She cleans the scent of her sex from my lips and from my fingertips.

After, as I hold her, I'm excited and I'm at peace, running my hands over the softest skin. There's arousal deep inside of me, but the quickening of my flesh inside the plastic doesn't bother me.

"You're smiling."

I am. My lips tilt up, my heart light. "I don't know," I tell her. "I'm just happy."

Relaxing into me more fully, she presses kisses to my chest. "I'm glad." She rubs her backside to my groin. "It doesn't bother you this time?"

"No. It's nothing like when you punished me. I feel…good. In control."

She shakes her head, but it's with the same wonderment that comes from any discussion of our differences. "I don't think I'll ever understand that. How you feel more in control by giving it to me."

"I don't get it either." I hold her closer. Wrap myself around her skin. "But I do."

That night, she gives me the option of my freedom. I smile wide as I decline. The following night, it's harder, but still I shake my head, lying with her naked in our bed. To taunt myself, I trace the line between her breasts again and again and again.

I'm not the only one I'm taunting.

She suffers my attentions with both patience and amusement for a while, but it's not long before a little crinkle of irritation forms itself between her brows. Her thighs move one against the other and her shallowed breathing pushes her breasts against my hand. I suck in my own shudder of a needy inhale. I love to see her like this. So much.

Especially when it all becomes too much. In true Bella fashion, she huffs and pushes my hand away, gazing at me with unmasked want. The next thing I know, I'm on back, her body over mine, thighs straddling mine, and her hips have never been so close when I've been encased this way, kept chaste by my Mistress. Kept in a maddening state of restrained desire by my love.

She all but growls as she plants her hands on either side of my head. Nipping at my ear, she asks, "You know the problem with this whole arrangement?"

I think I do. But I want to hear her tell me all the same.

"What's that?"

Her voice low and husky, she breathes, "What if _I_ want to fuck?"

Deep in my chest, I'm melting. Even though we aren't playing, I'm hers. "All you'd have to do is tell me."

"And what if I want your mouth?"

"Just ask."

She lowers herself down. Slides slick flesh along my hip and makes me throb. "Will you?"

"With pleasure."

I roll her in a sudden motion, a show of strength inside my limbs that I rarely have cause to use. Not with her. She's under me, legs open, soft red lip between her teeth. She runs her fingers through my hair, petting and stroking and making me feel so good. I kiss my way from her neck to her chest. Sucking gently, I take one nipple and then another in my mouth. I tweak and twist that hardened flesh between my fingers. I make my way down.

With my shoulders held between her thighs, I cup her in my hand. Slip fingertips through the soft, pink wet of her sex. Spread her lips and stroke the very tip of her clit.

She arches off the bed, sensitive and sweet.

"You want my mouth?"

"Edward…"

I wash my breath across her need and tease. "Say please."

Her mouth is a whining little pout. I'm riding the very finest of lines.

Finally, so quietly, she murmurs, "Please."

I fit my lips and tongue to her, lick and suck and kiss. She's soft and swollen, beautiful and ripe against my tongue.

"That's it, baby." She holds me to her, but she doesn't need to. There's nowhere else I want to be but here. Here at the apex of my lover's body, at the very center of all things.

Fingers deep inside her and wrecked by her taste, I give her what she wants. I give myself that, too. The higher she rises, the more my own desire sinks, becoming something unimportant. Irrelevant.

Because all I need is this.

Her. Beneath me. Quaking. Scratching skin and whimpering, thrusting hips against my face. Taking her pleasure from me and letting me give.

I have so much love I want to give to her.

And when she comes, it's like I do, too.

After, I hover over her, my face pressed to her collarbone, our hearts as one, beating hard. The way I fill the cage is powerful, but I'm okay. I'm okay.

Still, she slides a finger over the stretched-tight skin around my balls. "Do you…?"

I shake my head. Grasp her hand and push it away.

"No. Not tonight."

She lifts my gaze to hers, searching. "Really?"

"Really."

And I smile. I survived this once as punishment, but I'm more than surviving. I'm thrumming and I'm thriving.

And I'm doing this for me. For her.

For us.

I feel like I can do anything.

…

I wake on the morning of the third day with my body primed, my hand on Bella's breast, my skin needy and hot. The very air feels charged with sex, and I send her off with kisses that tease us both.

Hips against hers, I ask, "Can you get out of work early today?"

She nips at my lip, pushing me higher, making the air feel thicker. "I'll see what I can do."

"Good." I push up her skirt and trail my fingers up the insides of her thighs. "Because I have a reward to collect on."

Her voice is a hiss. "Yes, you do."

I spend the day in a fog of want, distracted and on edge, and I love it. I love the feeling of being sexual and needy and of knowing I'm going to get exactly what I want. I love my Bella and my life right now.

I love everything.

At four o'clock, I get a text that says she's on her way, and I'm out of my chair, pulled from the work I haven't been concentrating on and the idle surfing for pornography I've been torturing myself with. Even though the apartment is spotless from my obsessive cleaning of the past few days, I give it one more once over, just to kill time.

I hear the opening and closing of the door downstairs, and I'm on the move. Before she can even get her key into the lock, I'm wrenching the door to our apartment open, grabbing her keys from her hand and tossing them aside. I press her up against the door, shoving it closed with one hand while the other is reaching for the buttons of her blouse. She's giggling and smiling against my mouth, kissing me and sliding fingers through my hair.

"Somebody's eager."

"You have no idea."

Except she does. Somehow she always, always knows.

I'm melting into her and giving in to my need for touch in a way I haven't in three long days. Peeling her from the door without letting an inch of air between our bodies, I pull us backward toward the bedrooms. For a second, I hesitate, uncertain if it's our room or the playroom we should head to, but one subtle push of her hands toward our room is all I need.

She doesn't turn my collar or ask if I want to serve her. She doesn't have to. It's one of those times when the lines blur between our lives and play, and that's okay. She shoves me back onto our bed without any ceremony, tearing off my shirt at the same time that I am pulling at hers. On top of me, straddling my hips and putting pressure on the jut of plastic between my legs, she's warm and soft, commanding and sweet.

How badly I want to let her take me.

"So good," I mumble at her breast, pulling the cup of her bra down. "So beautiful."

She bites hard at the juncture of shoulder and neck. "You want to come tonight, Pet?"

"Fuck yes."

She has my pants down at my knees, lips sucking at the skin of my upper thigh before I can so much as blink. I'm filling the cage, aching and moaning and threading my hands into her hair.

Flicking the ring around my balls, turning my groan into a gasp of pleasured pain, she grins evilly. "Hurts doesn't it?"

I laugh, deep in the back of my throat. "Yes."

"Let Mistress make it all better."

She's a lioness. A goddess.

And contrary to her offer, she makes it so, so much worse. She pulls my pants off the rest of the way and settles in between my legs, kissing my hip and sliding a finger over my balls and lower. Lower.

I come off the bed, dripping through the slit in the plastic of the cage when she slips a finger just inside me. I don't know where the slickness came from or how she knows how to make me fall apart, but I'm delirious in pleasure and frustration. She pushes deeper, hits my prostate, and the pressure forces my eyes closed.

It's so good and not enough, and I'm trapped, at her mercy, and I want… So much… So _hard…_

And then we hear it.

A snap.

At the sudden release of the pressure on my cock, I cry out loud. My eyes snap open, going to her dumbstruck ones, and then we're both looking down. Down at the way the plastic has split apart at the seam. And then there's only silence.

She's the first to speak, her voice level and matter of fact. "Well, shit. I told Kate you were too big for this one."

And then we're both laughing, and it's silly and wonderful. Male ego and absurdity, and if I'd ever doubted I was a man, I _know_ what I am now.

A submissive man, yes. But a submissive man with a giant cock.

A submissive man that needs to come.

"Baby…" I beg.

"I know, I know."

So, so carefully, she pulls at the plastic. Every move hurts, the edges sharp but her fingers soft. She cuts the lock and tugs at the broken tube, and with each degree of freedom, my cock fills further, apparently undeterred by the danger.

Then again, the threat of pain has never exactly been a deterrent to me when Mistress and I are having sex.

It's a relief the instant the contraption is gone, all the same. I suck in a deep, cleansing breath and push my head back into the pillow, my eyes rolling back at the sensation of freedom in my skin.

She kisses my hip and then pulls away. "Be right back."

I slide a palm along the length of myself while I am waiting, and it feels so good. So enrapturing I hardly notice she's returned until she's batting my hand away, a playful swat at my thighs and a skyward, bemused glance with her eyes.

"My job," she insists as she wraps a washcloth around my length.

"Just holding your place for you," I say, breath hitching. With what little patience I have left, I let her clean me up. Even the rough fabric on my skin feels good.

And then I'm in her mouth, in the warm and wet, and she's sucking hard, her finger in my ass again. It's ecstasy so consuming I hardly have the sense to remember I don't want that. I don't want this.

I tug her shoulder and her hair, pulling her off and grimacing at the cold air after the heat of her throat. "Come up here," I demand, and she does what I want her to. I kiss her mouth and palm her breast, pull her hips down to mine. She's still half-dressed and I don't care. "Want to be inside."

"Pushy little subby."

"Not so little," I growl.

She's laughing. "No, not little at all."

I push her underwear aside and probe her slickness with a groan. "You're so wet."

"All for you, baby."

She slips a hand around me and lifts me up. Sinks down.

Heat.

Wet.

_Inside._

"Jesus _Christ_."

There's nothing as good as this. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It doesn't take long. Not long at all. But she makes it so safe, whispering filthy things in my ear full of "fuck" and "me" and "hard" and "cock" and "come" and "come" and "inside me, baby, come."

A half dozen strokes and I shudder, gripping her tight as my whole body locks down, gives up and over. I empty violently as I fall into oblivion, the whole time moaning that I love her. I love her.

I love her so, so hard.

…

The next day, I find her sitting with her laptop at our kitchen table, reading glasses perched on her nose, lip between her teeth and a flush on her cheeks. She looks for all the world like the commanding, lustful librarian of my adolescent dreams. And she's mine. All mine.

I stand there, just taking it all in for a minute. Fantasizing. I'm not as stealthy in my watching as I think I am, though. Without moving her head, she flits her eyes up from the screen to me, gazing over the top of her glasses and making me hard inside my jeans. "Edward?"

"Bella?"

"Precisely how long are you planning on standing there, perving on me?"

Busted. I cough into my hand and deflect. "Is it really p-perving if I'm staring at my girlfriend?"

She arches an eyebrow. "When you look at me like that it is."

"Like what?"

"Like you're imagining me taking you behind the circulation desk and turning your ass red."

Busted doesn't even cover it. The way I clear my throat just confirms it. She chuckles in the back of her throat and holds out her hand, crooking a finger toward me in a beckoning gesture I would never deny.

"I was just going to go looking for you anyway. You have a second?"

"Always."

I adjust my erection and move to stand behind her. I touch the back of her shoulder in a silent signal and she rises, letting me slip into the chair beneath her and then settling herself in my lap. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I rest my chin on her shoulder and look at her screen.

On it, I find metal. Gleaming steel.

I nip her ear and shift my hips beneath her. "Naughty girl. What have you been up to?"

Grinding herself back against me pointedly, she scrolls a little lower on the screen. "I asked Lee for some suggestions for cages for bigger boys."

Sure enough, the window floats over a series of male chastity devices, each more evil-looking than the last. Most are metal, made of series of interlocking rings, and more than one boasts of being designed for men of a certain length and girth.

If I was hard before, I'm aching now.

Still high on the victory of pushing myself the way I did this week, the cages are no longer frightening. If anything, they're enticing. As is the chance to push ourselves again. To keep learning and discovering. Growing. Loving.

Pushing the neckline of her shirt aside, I press my lips against her skin. "Oh?"

"Yup. But this time, instead of going ahead and getting one, I thought maybe I should, I don't know, say, talk to you about it first."

"I'm listening."

Am I ever.

She hesitates, pausing to give me time to protest. But all I have is curiosity.

Placing my hand over hers, I get her to stop scrolling. Mousing over one of the more intriguing ones, I ask, "How does it work?"

The sadistic gleam I love and lust for lights the corners of her eyes. With zeal, she points and gestures, explaining how my cock would fit inside the steel and how I'd be restrained there, captive and helpless and hers.

Only once she's done does she glance at me, schooling her expression as she waits for my reaction. "If you want," she says uncertainly.

"Do you want?"

She shrugs, but I can tell she does. She really, really does. "You seemed to like it last time."

It's surprising, but it's true. "I did. I…I proved something to myself. That I can do anything."

"I always knew you could."

I tilt my head, giving voice to my one reservation. "We're not going to use again for p-punishment, though."

She shakes her head and smiles, shifting to wrap her arms around my neck. "No. I do learn, sometimes. Playtime only."

"Then yeah." I grin. "Let's do it."

She presses a quick peck to my lips then turns around to face her laptop. She's clicking through the pages on the screen again, talking about options and showing me some other toys she wants to add to our collection. And I'm listening but I'm also not.

All I see is her. She's my Mistress. My best friend. My lover and my life. And I don't doubt she always will be.

Because, just like that, we're us again.

And all of our mistakes are forgiven.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

* * *

**A/N:** If you haven't heard, it sounds like FFn is doing one of its annual purges of MA-rated fanfic again. I'm not abandoning ship, because this site is still one of the easiest to use, but if Our Lives Unbound ends up being targeted, I have archived it on An Archive Of Our Own under the same title and with the same username.

You can find it at: archiveofourown**DOT**org/works/426381/chapters/716515

If any of my other stories get taken down, I'll probably archive them there, too, but since OLU seems the most, ahem, take-down-able, I figured I'd start there.

Thanks for reading. Until next time…


	7. My Everything

The fandom seems to be in a bit of a funk today, and so am I. Then I remembered I had this little something-something hidden away in a folder. It was originally written for the Fandom for Katalina compilation, but it was (literally) a day late and a couple thousand words short because I didn't read the instructions correctly, so it was not included in that collection (my fault, my decision, not theirs, I promise). I did send it to Katalina, though, and had always vaguely planned on posting it. No time like the present, huh?

This quickie future-take fits into the story between the last chapter and the epilogue, and it is a tiny pile of vaguely smutty fluff fluff fluff.

…

**Our Lives Unbound Outtake: My Everything**

"You want it, Pet?"

"Fuck, yes. Yes, please, Mistress, please, I—"

I'm lying on my back, my hands bound above my head, sweat everywhere and the sweetness of her pussy on me, and I'm so hard. She edges me up and takes me down, coaxing and climbing and falling, and I don't know how to breathe anymore. I'm so close to something…To falling away and not knowing if I'll ever resurface.

She leans in close, and I wince, head turning, but a hand at my chin holds me down, long fingers gripping. Every point of pressure feels like fire. "Tell me what you want."

"I—"

"Tell me."

And I feel it. I feel the ache of giving over and giving in, of being hers and being owned and being free.

"What do you want?"

The words flow just that easily. And I hear them. I hear that moment when it all gives way, and like it does, the truth pours out of me like rain.

My eyes seize on hers, and I whisper, "Everything."

And it all seems to stop. The motion of her hips, the breath in her lungs, even her gaze seems to freeze. The bottom falls out and an abyss gapes and yawns. I stare at her and I don't look down.

Just like that, the world resumes, her mouth is on mine, hands on my skin, fingers between us, flicking to unhook the ring around my cock. Sensation pushes through me anew, and my head jerks back.

"Take it, then."

I do. I thrust forward into welcoming heat, close my eyes, cry, "Mistress," and her name.

I give her just what she would give me.

If I only had the courage to ask.

…

_What do you want?_

As I slip into the bath, her words still echo in my head. My reply is there with them, too.

_Everything_.

The force of submission is still a fullness in my chest, but it's not the only thing there. There's something else, something brighter. More all-consuming in its light.

Rightness.

The idea is right.

Everything. That's what she is to me. The woman I love, the dominant I craved before I knew what one even was. The person who taught me to love myself. My life.

She sits astride my thighs, face soft. She brings a washcloth to my skin, and I place my palm over hers. Hold it, warm, against my heart. With my other hand, I reach out. I grip her chin between my forefinger and my thumb. And I look at her.

She's so beautiful.

And everything is clear in a way it only is when we're like this. When we're everything at once to each other.

The question's out on the air before I can even think of how to word it. "Marry me."

She breathes in and out, and I do, too, more joined to her than I am when we are making love. Her gaze steady, lips parted, she regards me, and it isn't doubt I see there.

It isn't panic in my chest, and that in and of itself speaks to the miracle she's made of me.

Slowly, she pulls her hand from under mine. Without breaking our gaze, she presses fingers to my throat, traces the cord of my collar to the back of my neck. She unhooks it and sets it on the side of the bath.

"Edward."

Not Pet.

And she's so much more than my Mistress.

"Bella."

"Ask me again."

The words are just as even as they were the first time. "Marry me."

Her whole being seems to glow as she smile and smiles and smiles. Her lips are on mine, a kiss that speaks where words could never manage, but then she gives those to me, too.

"Of course." Again and again, she kisses me, and she's in my arms and I am in hers. She's over me and under me, and we are naked in this bath together.

And we are everything.

"Of course," she breathes. "I'll marry you. I'll marry you, of course I will."

And I am so full.

I hold her as tight as flesh can bear.

I have everything. _We_ have everything.

We have it all right here in our hands.


End file.
